Copyright TechTarget - All rights reserved https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html Techtarget Feed Generator en Fri, 10 Jul 2026 22:29:24 GMT https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking editor@techtarget.com <p>When it comes to malware delivery methods, attackers are sticking with what works -- even as they rely on a rapidly revolving door of payloads.</p> <p>That's according to a report from the ReliaQuest Threat Research Team, which tracks threat activity quarterly. From March 1 to May 31, ClickFix was attackers' preferred malware delivery technique, followed by removable media such as USB drives.</p> <p>ReliaQuest also monitors the top three malware families involved in confirmed security incidents, a list that has experienced almost complete turnover across the past three tracking periods. For defenders, that trend brings new urgency to old advice: Monitor threat behavior, not malware names.</p> <p>Here's how security teams can defend against ClickFix and removable-media-based attacks.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Trending attack: How to defend against ClickFix"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Trending attack: How to defend against ClickFix</h2> <p>Defenders can no longer consider ClickFix, a <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/How-to-avoid-and-prevent-social-engineering-attacks">social engineering</a> technique that first appeared in 2024, an emerging or OS-specific threat, ReliaQuest researchers warned. It was the dominant malware delivery channel between March 1 and May 31, and the second most common in the previous three-month reporting period.</p> <p>In addition to leading initial access, ClickFix also drove nearly a third of defense-evasion activity. And while it has historically targeted Windows users, ReliaQuest researchers recently observed ClickFix delivery of Atomic Stealer malware on macOS systems.</p> <p>"For enterprises, macOS must no longer be treated as lower risk and now needs the same monitoring and response coverage as Windows," <a target="_blank" href="https://reliaquest.com/blog/threat-spotlight-whats-trending-top-cyber-attacker-techniques-march-may-2026" rel="noopener">wrote</a> Raigridas Bartkus, the report's author and a cybersecurity specialist at ReliaQuest.</p> <p>ClickFix tricks users into engaging with prompts -- commonly disguised as legitimate error messages, update notifications and <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/CAPTCHA">CAPTCHA</a> checks -- and pasting malicious commands into system dialogs. While ClickFix often spreads through compromised websites, ReliaQuest noted it has recently shifted to email-based lures.</p> <p>"This period we also <a target="_blank" href="https://reliaquest.com/blog/threat-spotlight-deepload-malware-pairs-clickfix-delivery-with-ai-generated-evasion/" rel="noopener">saw</a> a ClickFix loader use likely AI-generated obfuscation to deliver 'Deepload' malware, burying its real logic under thousands of meaningless variable assignments to defeat static scanning," Bartkus wrote. With AI, he added, <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/How-AI-malware-works-and-how-to-defend-against-it">attackers can generate new variants more quickly</a>, giving defenders less time to adapt signature-based detection tools.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Malware leaderboard: March 1, 2026 - May 31, 2026</h3> <p>Here are the malware families that dominated ReliaQuest's latest reporting period, along with their delivery methods.</p> <p><b>Malware family:</b> Gamarue, also known as <i>Andromeda</i>, a familiar modular worm.<b><br>Malware delivery:</b> Spread through removable media, such as USB flash drives.</p> <p><b>Malware family:</b> NetSupport RAT, a remote access trojan variant of the legitimate IT remote administration tool NetSupport Manager.<b><br>Malware delivery:</b> The payload that ClickFix most often delivered, according to ReliaQuest.</p> <p><b>Malware family:</b> Raspberry Robin, a worm often used to provide initial access to ransomware operators.<br><b>Malware delivery:</b> Spread through removable media, such as USB flash drives.</p> </div> </div> <p>ClickFix attacks are now so pervasive and scaling so quickly that continuous training, detection and triage are necessary in both Windows and macOS environments, according to the report. CISOs should consider taking the following steps:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li><b>Train users.</b> By convincing targets to unwittingly run malicious commands on their own devices, ClickFix can bypass many file- and email-based controls. That makes an <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/Cybersecurity-employee-training-How-to-build-a-solid-plan">educated user base</a> the best defense. Train both Windows and macOS users never to paste commands in Run, Terminal or Script Editor.</li> <li><b>Include ClickFix lures in security awareness training.</b> Don't just tell users what to avoid -- show them, using simulated pop-up and email-based lures that mimic ClickFix attacks. Bartkus suggested including CAPTCHA and verification prompts, browser-to-shell hand-offs and "paste-this-to-continue" directives.</li> <li><b>Restrict access to system dialogs.</b> Restrict Run, Terminal and Script Editor access as much as possible, especially for nontechnical users in high-risk roles.</li> <li><b>Monitor for suspicious behavior.</b> Where impractical to restrict access to system dialogs -- for technical users, for example -- security teams should log and alert on RunMRU activity.</li> </ul> <p>"Monitoring for activity such as a sequence of base64 decoding, curl retrieval and PowerShell or osascript execution, for example, would represent reliably anomalous behavior in developer environments," a ReliaQuest spokesperson told <a target="_blank" href="https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/winner-dominant-malware-delivery-clickfix" rel="noopener">Dark Reading</a>, a TechTarget Cybersecurity sister publication.</p> <p>Because ClickFix attacks often rely on command obfuscation and obfuscated files, defenders should also look for legitimate-seeming files in unusual places.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Trending attack: How to defend against USB-based compromise"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Trending attack: How to defend against USB-based compromise</h2> <p>Among top initial access paths in March, April and May, removable media came in hot on ClickFix's heels. According to ReliaQuest researchers, two of the top three malware families during the reporting period spread through infected external devices such as USB drives.</p> <p>The report noted a persistent seasonal trend: USB-based attacks tend to escalate during predictable annual periods, such as tax season and Q1 financial reporting. Presumably, employees use removable drives to transfer files among in-office, at-home and third-party environments, increasing enterprise risk.</p> <p>ReliaQuest warned that USB-based malware can lead to broader compromise. Raspberry Robin, for example -- one of the reporting period's leading malware families -- often enables <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/What-role-does-an-initial-access-broker-play-in-the-RaaS-model">initial access for ransomware operators</a>.</p> <p>According to the researchers, defenders should take the following steps to defend against USB-based attacks.</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Disable USB autorun across the enterprise IT environment.</li> <li>Use allowlists to <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tutorial/How-to-disable-removable-media-access-with-Group-Policy">block unapproved removable devices</a>.</li> <li>Alert on shortcut (.lnk) or script execution from external drives.</li> <li>Approach any confirmed USB-based infection as the possible precursor to a <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/Top-3-ransomware-attack-vectors-and-how-to-avoid-them">major ransomware attack</a>.</li> </ul> <p><em>Alissa Irei is senior site editor of Informa TechTarget Security.</em></p> </section> Now more than ever, defenders must look for suspicious behavior, not specific malware. Learn how to defend against two trending initial access methods. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/security-malware-adobe.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/366645832/ClickFix-and-removable-media-lead-malware-delivery-methods Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:55:00 GMT <p>Enterprise endpoint strategy no longer revolves solely around Windows devices. As hybrid work and digital experiences reshape IT policies, macOS has become a strategic consideration in many organizations.</p> <p>The challenge for IT leaders is determining when macOS adoption justifies a deliberate investment in deployment, support strategy and MDM or unified endpoint management (<a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterprisedesktop/definition/unified-endpoint-management-UEM">UEM</a>). And when an organization does go through with this investment, IT must still balance governance, cost control and long-term operational complexity.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Why might an organization need a Mac strategy?"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Why might an organization need a Mac strategy?</h2> <p>There are a few reasons why an organization might decide to develop a Mac management strategy.</p> <p>The first major reason is preference among a large volume of users. As workforces become more distributed, employees have different expectations for their endpoints. There's greater demand for high-performance, flexible devices and a wider range of system configuration options. For some end users, a Mac is the device that would best fit that criteria. Then, Mac preference and adoption in an organization might reach a scale where informal support is insufficient. This necessitates a structured, MDM-controlled lifecycle.</p> <p>In addition, Mac adoption often overlaps with workplace modernization initiatives. Cloud-native apps and browser-based workflows make cross-platform support more practical. In these situations, IT teams can take measures to benefit both Mac management and <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchwindowsserver/tip/Try-these-strategies-to-modernize-Windows-workloads">broader modernization goals</a>. Strategy objectives might include the following:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Implement continuous endpoint monitoring across mixed-device environments.</li> <li>Build unified support and training workflows across operating systems.</li> <li>Reduce reliance on legacy Windows-only applications.</li> <li>Create role-based endpoint policies instead of rigid, one-size-fits-all standards.</li> <li>Standardize cloud-first endpoint access policies for macOS, Windows and Linux.</li> <li>Expand zero-touch deployment capabilities for remote onboarding and support.</li> </ul> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Risks of a fragmented macOS approach"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Risks of a fragmented macOS approach</h2> <p>Workplace mobility and employee preferences make OS diversity crucial. However, a governed, centralized macOS approach is necessary for operational efficiency and security.</p> <p>IT administrators should keep the following risks in mind when building a macOS strategy, especially in mixed environments:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li><b>Inconsistent governance and compliance exposure.</b> Gaps in policy enforcement across OSes can cause challenges with aligning regulatory requirements.</li> <li><b>Operational inefficiencies and hidden cost drivers.</b> Lack of standardized processes leads to increased support burden, tool fragmentation and duplicated workflows.</li> <li><b>Security and visibility gaps.</b> A unified strategy and effective endpoint monitoring are necessary to maintain a consistent security posture across devices.</li> <li><b>App compatibility constraints.</b> Dependence on legacy Windows apps and the use of <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchitoperations/feature/5-common-virtualization-problems-and-how-to-solve-them">virtualization workarounds</a> can increase operational complexity and cost.</li> </ul> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Evolving security and access models for macOS"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Evolving security and access models for macOS</h2> <p>As organizations adapt to hybrid work and distributed operations, traditional VPN-centric security models are giving way to identity-first, <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/answer/What-are-the-most-important-pillars-of-a-zero-trust-framework">zero-trust architectures</a>. In these environments, access and compliance depend on continuous verification of user identity and device posture. The shift makes endpoint visibility and policy consistency essential for organizations supporting diverse OSes.</p> <p>Rather than treating it as a separate environment, modern strategies integrate macOS into broader identity and compliance frameworks. For a successful integration, IT teams should carry out the following tasks:</p> <ul type="disc" class="default-list"> <li>Align Macs with enterprise security providers.</li> <li>Enforce consistent access policies through <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterprisedesktop/feature/Understand-how-UEM-EMM-and-MDM-differ-from-one-another">MDM and UEM platforms</a>.</li> <li>Continuously monitor endpoint health and configuration status.</li> </ul> <p>These approaches reduce reliance on legacy infrastructure and improve both security posture and UX.</p> <div class="youtube-iframe-container"> <iframe id="ytplayer-0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NJlEDzo99Ts?autoplay=0&amp;modestbranding=1&amp;rel=0&amp;widget_referrer=null&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.techtarget.com" type="text/html" height="360" width="640" frameborder="0"></iframe> </div> <p>Compliance and governance also play a critical role. Admins must ensure that macOS endpoints meet the same reporting, auditability and policy enforcement standards as the broader endpoint deployment. An effective macOS strategy is less about the devices themselves and more about integrating them into a unified, identity-driven and platform-agnostic enterprise security model.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Operational and support implications of macOS growth"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Operational and support implications of macOS growth</h2> <p>As Mac adoption scales beyond small groups of executives and specialized teams, operational considerations become more important. Supporting macOS at scale affects help desk structure, endpoint tooling and deployment workflows, particularly in mixed-OS environments.</p> <p>Consider the following factors to account for macOS growth:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li><b>Scaling support models.</b> Transition from niche support to standardized service delivery. This should include an established help desk structure and escalation paths.</li> <li><b>Tooling and lifecycle management.</b> Provide cross-platform visibility with MDM-driven deployment, patching and configuration management.</li> <li><b>Staffing and expertise.</b> Balance macOS specialization with unified endpoint support teams. Additionally, consider hiring versus training for staff.</li> </ul> <p>The following developments can indicate that macOS strategy needs to evolve:</p> <ul type="disc" class="default-list"> <li>Growth in Mac-related procurement requests.</li> <li>Growth in Mac-related support demand.</li> <li>Policy inconsistencies or UX gaps.</li> <li>Increased business unit or executive-driven adoption.</li> </ul> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Business decision-making framework for Mac strategy"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Business decision-making framework for Mac strategy</h2> <p>IT admins evaluating broader macOS adoption should focus on four core areas: Workforce needs, operational readiness, security alignment and financial impact.</p> <h3>Workforce and productivity</h3> <p>Determine which user groups benefit most from macOS support. Executive teams, developers and highly mobile employees might prioritize flexibility and UX differently than standardized back-office roles. Evaluate how Apple device choice affects productivity, retention or recruitment outcomes.</p> <h3>Operational readiness</h3> <p>Assess whether existing deployment, MDM, support and <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterprisedesktop/tip/Three-PC-lifecycle-management-options-IT-should-consider">lifecycle management processes</a> can scale across mixed environments. Growing Mac adoption often requires standardized tooling and clearer governance.</p> <h3>Security and compliance alignment</h3> <p>Don't just support Apple devices as exceptions. Instead, integrate them into existing zero-trust, compliance and monitoring strategies. Evaluate visibility, policy consistency and audit readiness <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterprisedesktop/tip/How-to-support-Mac-OS-X-and-Linux-in-Windows-environments">across macOS and Windows environments</a>.</p> <h3>Financial and strategic value</h3> <p>Consider the total cost of ownership beyond hardware. Be sure to look into device lifecycle, support complexity, tooling overlap and long-term endpoint strategy.</p> <p>Organizations can no longer evaluate macOS solely as a user preference or niche support requirement. Often, the real challenge is determining how Apple devices fit into a broader security, governance and operational efficiency strategy. IT leaders who approach Mac management strategically -- rather than reactively -- will be better able to build a more resilient endpoint model for the future.</p> <p><em>Damon Garn owns Cogspinner Coaction and provides freelance IT writing and editing services. He has written multiple CompTIA study guides, including the Linux+, Cloud Essentials+ and Server+ guides, and contributes extensively to TechTarget Editorial, The New Stack and CompTIA Blogs.</em></p> </section> As hybrid work reshapes IT, macOS has evolved from exception to strategic priority, requiring organizations to balance governance, security and cost control. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/keyboard_g157531137.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterprisedesktop/tip/How-to-build-a-successful-Mac-enterprise-management-strategy Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:49:00 GMT Protect AI workloads with confidential containers on OpenShift. Learn how Intel TDX helps secure data in use, support sovereign AI, and isolate sensitive workloads from infrastructure access. https://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1783015559_814.html Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:12:00 GMT <p>In the education sector, cybersecurity controls and third-party risk management get put to the test -- and frequently don't get a passing grade.</p> <p>Academic organizations might not seem like prime targets for cyberattacks, but these data-rich -- and security-insufficient -- schools, colleges and universities are often just what nefarious actors have in their sights.</p> <p>In fact, cybersecurity services provider Quorum Cyber documented a 63% year-over-year increase in cyberactivity at higher-ed institutions from 2024 to 2025, and Clever, a K-12 identity platform vendor, found that 52% of U.S. school districts experienced a cybersecurity event in 2025, up 36% from the previous year. Further, threat exposure management platform vendor NordStellar reported that 2.4% of all ransomware attacks in the first half of 2026 targeted the education sector.</p> <p>A growing trend among attacks on educational organizations is third-party breaches. In late April and early May, edtech company Instructure <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/366642963/Instructure-cyberattack-reignites-ransom-payment-debate">confirmed a cyberattack</a> on its Canvas learning management platform. Threat group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility, stating it had stolen 3.65 TB of data, including information about 275 million users across nearly 9,000 schools.</p> <p>In June, ShinyHunters <a target="_blank" href="https://www.highereddive.com/news/colleges-hit-in-cyberattack-by-group-behind-canvas-breach-google-says/822831/" rel="noopener">took credit for</a> another higher-ed attack, reporting that it exploited the Oracle PeopleSoft suite, which offers campus applications aimed to help higher-ed manage student records, admissions and financial aid.</p> <p>The risks and challenges for edtech and academic institutions don't stop there. In this Reporter's Notebook video, Dark Reading features writer Arielle Waldman, Cybersecurity Dive senior reporter Eric Geller and TechTarget SearchSecurity executive editor Sharon Shea dive into the reality of edtech cybersecurity, including recent attacks, reasons why the sector is such a prime target and more.</p> <p><em>Sharon Shea is executive editor of TechTarget Security.</em></p> <transcript> <p><b>Editor's note:</b> <i>This transcript has been edited for clarity and length by Informa TechTarget's internal AI assistant.</i></p> <p><b>Dark Reading's Arielle Waldman:</b> Hi, everyone, welcome to another edition of the Reporters' Notebook. Today we're going to be discussing the education sector and all the issues that they've been facing. My name is Arielle Waldman and I'm a features writer for Dark Reading. I have Sharon Shea and Eric Geller with me. Would you like to introduce yourselves?</p> <p><b>Cybersecurity Dive's Eric Geller:</b> Yes, I'm Eric Geller, senior reporter at Cybersecurity Dive.</p> <p><b>TechTarget SearchSecurity's Sharon Shea:</b> Hi, I'm Sharon Shea, executive editor on TechTarget SearchSecurity.</p> <p>Thank you all for joining us today. We're excited to chat about edtech and the educational sector and cybersecurity. So, we're coming off the heels of what folks are calling the biggest attack on education in history. In late April and early May, edtech company Instructure confirmed a cyberattack on its Canvas Learning Management System. Threat group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the attack and said that they stole 3.65TB of data, including information from 275 million users across almost 9,000 schools. As of May 11, Instructure said it had reached an agreement with the attackers and that the software is safe to use. I don't think we know if they paid a ransom or not, but whatever "reached an agreement" means.</p> <p>And then again, just last week, ShinyHunters also claimed responsibility for further attacks on higher ed, reportedly exploiting the Oracle PeopleSoft software suites, [the vendors] for ERP, CRM [and] HCM, and they have campus applications to help higher ed manage student records, admissions and financial aid. Google noted that while some organizations were able to block or remediate the vulnerabilities before this latest round of attacks, others were compromised and have had their data published on data leak sites. So, education is unique. It's up against a lot of threats and this just touches on the supply chain side, the software supply chain and organizations getting hit because of their software suppliers, as in through Canvas and the PeopleSoft software.</p> <p>And also a bit of the ransomware in there, too, right? Because they spoke with the attackers and reached an agreement. So, Arielle, I didn't know if you want to talk a little bit more about other attacks that you've seen and written about.</p> <p><b>Waldman:</b> Sure. This seems to just be the latest supply chain attack. I think one issue is the concentrated area of schools that only use certain platforms and software. And they've just experienced so many attacks in the last five years alone. In 2023, there was a big one with Progress Software's MOVEit. It's a file transfer that schools use, and that was also a ransomware attack, and that affected a lot of schools as well, another supply chain ransomware situation, which is so common against the sector. And then the PowerSchool data breach that happened a couple of years ago. PowerSchool is an edtech cloud-based platform. It's used in K-12 schools. And in that case, it was a data breach and attackers made off with names, addresses, birth dates, academic records and even medical information.</p> <p>And in that case, I think it was confirmed that they paid a ransom to have the files deleted, which does seem common, maybe in the education sector. I don't know if it's always confirmed, but like you said, it seems like they talked with the attackers, which maybe insinuates that they did pay a ransom since the data is so valuable and sensitive when it comes to students. And with the most recent with Canvas, it happened during finals week, which put another kind of hurdle, kind of disrupted school even more so. Though I don't think the students were that upset. I saw a lot of things on social media with students thanking ShinyHunters for disrupting their finals and things like that. I think kids are so immune to it nowadays that their schools are just being attacked and they receive data breaches, as [does] everyone, and these attacks just continue to show that.</p> <p>Eric, do you want to dig into why schools are such a big target?</p> <p><b>Geller:</b> It's a toxic combination of a bunch of factors. First, they have a lot of data. Second, they have a lot of data about people who are at the very beginning of their lives. So Social Security numbers and personal information is going be usable for a lot longer because these people are so young. If you steal that information, you have in some cases 80 more years of usefulness from it if the person doesn't change some of that information and you can't, you know, change the Social Security number. So the lifespan of the data is so much longer, and when you combine that with the fact that these are not well-protected organizations, they're funded by local governments. They have dire needs outside of cybersecurity that receive a lot more of the funding, teacher pay, infrastructure. They're not only valuable targets because of the data that they hold, but they're easy targets because of the networks that they run.</p> <p>There's also another security issue for them because a lot of them will give out tablets, and it's not always easy to manage the security of the tablets. Same with laptops, but also students are bringing their own devices to school. If you think about a business environment where you're trying to enforce a managed device policy because of the security risks of BYOD, it's so much harder in a school environment. So, you have all these outside devices coming into the network, and you could sort of think of it as an insider threat where the student doesn't have malicious intent.</p> <p>But if the attacker is able to break into the student's device because they're not prioritizing cybersecurity, and who among them is, that's another vector for them to get in. And then they can move across the network because that computer is given access to the network infrastructure at the school. So, these are places that don't have the money to prioritize cybersecurity. They have a hard time often attracting top-tier cybersecurity experts to work for them. They're connected in some cases to other local government infrastructure and that infrastructure is also vulnerable. And so all of that helps explain why it's easy to get in. And then, of course, as I said, once you get in, there's a lot of good stuff to take. So, the combination of those things makes them a really easy and valuable target.</p> <p><b>Waldman:</b> I was going to add in one thing. The students are also posing insider threats as well. They're trying to hack into the system sometimes, either just to see if they can hack or to change grades, maybe&nbsp; just get around the security measures so they can break out onto the internet. They'll try to hack in that way.</p> <p>So, it's just schools are experiencing these threats from so many angles, not just attackers. Obviously, like you said, students aren't trying to be malicious, but it really just adds to the noise. And like you said, they're so under-resourced and understaffed. Adding to any noise, it makes these teams, you know, they're already busy, and they don't have time to sort through the noise and find out it's a student, and they just take more resources. So, schools just have it from all ends.</p> <p><b>Shea:</b> Absolutely. I was also going to touch on what you mentioned, the Social Security numbers and everything of the students. You also have their parents, folks who are also signing for the financials and everything. You have the staff, you have other faculty and even the financial aid data, payment data and a lot of healthcare information [that] will roll through the school as well. So, another big vector. And also a lot of the higher ed organizations are, you know, research facilities. So, you have all of that intellectual property also at risk.</p> <p><b>Geller:</b> Right, you have on the one end the students in the K-12 sector who are at the beginning of their lives and their data is very valuable. And then at the other end, you have the top-tier research universities where the students are a little older, but the other data is so much more valuable because it's not the parents' financial info. It's in some cases this, you know, patentable intellectual property, this confidential data about applied research innovations and we're talking about this in the education sector, but there is also an overlap with the defense sector because some of the universities do have defense contracts. Or if it's not military-related, they're working on scientific research for the government in other contexts. So, it is an interesting duality that you have the youngest of the young kids where you don't really care about what they're learning in school. You're not trying to get their arithmetic homework, but they as identity theft victims are so valuable. And then at the other end, the students are actually, because of what they're doing, more interesting than the identity of the people who are in the school.</p> <p><b>Shea:</b> I think, too, we touched on the resources of schools as well. You know, a lot of schools are on legacy infrastructure like older companies and those are difficult to patch, difficult to manage with limited budgets and limited staff.</p> <p><b>Waldman:</b> Great point. Can't afford the downtime often to patch as well.</p> <p><b>Shea:</b> Absolutely. And beyond the BYOD issue and insider threats, what other sort of problems are we seeing with the infrastructure, and why are there issues among higher-ed education?</p> <p><b>Geller:</b> Well, I think one big challenge is these school districts don't have a lot of leverage with their vendors to enforce procurement requirements. So, one of the things that I think you're going to start to see is local governments will really try to package together the software that they need across the county or across, maybe it's the state, so that they can get better terms with the vendors so that they're putting in a larger purchase order, they have a little bit more sway with the vendor as opposed to the very specific school software that only the schools are going to buy, the vendor is in a much more advantageous position than the school because they sell to a lot of schools. The school is only buying from a handful of vendors. The school, in many cases, can't turn to another vendor either because it doesn't have exactly the features they need or because they've been using the same vendor for years and switching would be very difficult. And so, the relationship there, the biggest changes I think we're going to see in cybersecurity when it comes to the security of software are the result of procurement terms, what the buyer can require from the vendor as a result of the leverage that they have.</p> <p>And that's just not something that exists in the K-12, at least education environment. I won't speak to the higher-ed environment because oftentimes those public university systems have a lot of sway with their vendors because they're huge institutions. But a local school district, to say nothing of just a local government in general, is going [to] have a much harder time. And so, I think what you're seeing now, I actually was at a conference recently where there was a conversation about edtech. And there's going to be a push I think to try to include those terms in the contracts where possible and then where it isn't possible to explicitly have stronger cybersecurity language to try to litigate after a breach on the basis of existing statutes to try to get the vendors to do better about cybersecurity so that they don't expose themselves to that kind of liability with other customers going forward.</p> <p>Liability and vendor expectations and procurement ecosystem, I think that's an interesting space to watch if you're interested in edtech cybersecurity over the next few years. How does that evolve? How do the districts get more out of the software they're buying, even though they don't have the power to tell the vendors exactly what to do?</p> <p><b>Waldman:</b> I don't know how motivated the vendors are to include strong security if there's not that many choices for the schools or, like you said, they've been using one vendor for a while, they don't have a lot of resources to switch. So yeah, maybe they'll be more motivated to do so if that's kind of built in there.</p> <p><b>Shea:</b> And I think that's also why you'll see, as we saw with Instructure, one vendor gets hit and it had, you know, 9,000 schools. So, it'll be interesting to see.</p> <p><b>Waldman:</b> Another threat that I've been covering are ghost students. So, this is just another issue that schools are dealing with. Basically, these are fake students. They could be bots or anything like that. And these threat actors take up resources because they apply for financial aid and other things. And they take it away from the real students. So they're kind of fake applicants. They can use celebrity names sometimes or stolen identities.</p> <p>And then in that way they secure admissions or financial aid. And it's really straining resources in higher education institutions. Basically, the individual goes through the application process, but they're not actually going to attend. They could be scammers or bots. And why in one case, a fake student stole more than $10 million in federal finances from California community colleges in just one year. So, it's definitely racking up there and taking even more resources away. Since the attackers know that schools are <a name="_Int_sbdntkGb"></a>really under-resourced and understaffed and they're just continuing to take advantage of that.</p> <p><b>Shea:</b> That's an interesting point. Have you seen how schools are combating this with the limited resources?</p> <p><b>Waldman:</b> It's really getting tough. I don't think they are managing to get through some of them. I think awareness is where it's starting right now and just looking out for these threats and knowing that it's happening. I think the growing awareness is the first step so that the understaffed teams can know what to look for in those situations. Because before I think it was lesser known and it was hard to pick that out amongst all the threats that they're facing. So, the awareness I think is helpful there.</p> <p>And obviously ransomware continues to be a huge issue. I feel like ever since COVID, it just picked up against the schools and it just has not slowed down. I don't know if that's ever going to slow down. It seems schools just really can't handle ransomware with the downtime, and all the sensitive data. So, they just keep continuing to make due. Those attacks and schools continue to fall victim and there's so many different avenues now with all using some of the tools at home, like the parents, you know, the kids bring these things home and the parents have different logins, the teachers, the students, there's just so many different kinds of attack vectors there now, which makes it so much more difficult. Even the parents have to look out for these phishing emails or, you know, keep on top of that as well. It's not just the educators and students.</p> <p><b>Shea:</b> I think phishing, identity security, MFA, phishing-resistant authentication across all industries is an issue, but definitely in edtech as well.</p> <p>Well, I think we've had some interesting insights here today. I want to thank everyone for joining us. With TechTarget SearchSecurity, I am Sharon Shea.</p> <p><b>Geller:</b> And from Cybersecurity Dive, I'm Eric Geller.</p> <b>Waldman:</b> From Dark Reading, I'm Arielle Waldman. Thank you. </transcript> Why are educational institutions easy targets for cybercriminals? Uncover the reality of edtech security, recent breaches and what schools must do. https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/video/Edtech-gets-schooled-by-third-party-cyberthreats Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:10:00 GMT Explore a CPU-first approach to GenAI with Intel Xeon, Red Hat OpenShift AI, and Supermicro. Run RAG, agentic AI, and inference workloads while reducing cost and complexity. https://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1783015558_96.html Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:09:00 GMT Modernize virtualization with Intel Xeon 6 and Red Hat OpenShift. Simplify VM migration, reduce infrastructure costs, and build an AI-ready foundation across hybrid cloud environments. https://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1783016360_150.html Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:31:00 GMT <p>Enterprise software is still organized by category. That is not going away.</p> <p>ERP is still ERP. HR software is still HR software. Customer experience software still has its own buyers, vendors, budgets and use cases. Collaboration and communications platforms still have a different history from finance, supply chain or payroll systems. End-user computing still has its own management, security and experience problems.</p> <p>Those categories matter.</p> <p>They help companies buy software, assign budgets, manage vendors, support <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/application-portfolio-management-APM">application portfolio management</a>, define coverage areas and decide who should own which platforms. They also help editors, analysts, consultants and buyers make sense of a very crowded market.</p> <p>But categories are becoming less reliable as management boundaries.</p> <p>That is the shift.</p> <p>The work does not always stay inside the category that owns the application. A customer issue may touch CRM, billing, inventory, service, communications and analytics. An employee change can affect HR, payroll, identity, access, collaboration tools, endpoint policies and reporting. A finance process might depend on ERP data, procurement status, supplier risk, approvals, automation and a dashboard used by people outside finance.</p> <p>The software category can still describe where a system sits. It does not always describe where the work goes.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> The software category can still describe where a system sits. It does not always describe where the work goes. </figure> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>That is also why <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/feature/4-hidden-dependencies-that-keep-legacy-systems-alive">hidden dependencies keep legacy systems alive</a>. The formal category might say a system is obsolete, but the business could still depend on the data, reports, workflows or handoffs around it.</p> <p>That is why enterprise software strategy is becoming harder to manage by category alone.</p> <p>This is not only an AI story. It was already happening because of <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchapparchitecture/definition/EAI-enterprise-application-integration">enterprise application integration</a>, cloud platforms, shared data, <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcontentmanagement/definition/workflow-automation">workflow automation</a>, security, compliance, digital experience and pressure to prove ROI. AI accelerates the issue because copilots, agents and generative features need trusted data, permissions, context and controls from more than one system.</p> <p>AI may not be the only reason the boundaries are blurring.</p> <p>It is one reason the blur is harder to ignore.</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/how_application_portfolio_management_works-f.png "> <img data-src="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/how_application_portfolio_management_works-f_mobile.png " class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/how_application_portfolio_management_works-f_mobile.png 960w,https://www.techtarget.com/rms/onlineimages/how_application_portfolio_management_works-f.png 1280w" alt="Chart explaining how application portfolio management works." height="383" width="560"> <figcaption> <i class="icon pictures" data-icon="z"></i>Application portfolio management gives enterprises a way to inventory software, assess ownership, cost, risk and usage, and make decisions across systems rather than by category alone. </figcaption> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The stack is not flat, but the management problem is wider"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The stack is not flat, but the management problem is wider</h2> <p>It is tempting to describe this as the flattening of the enterprise software stack.</p> <p>That phrase gets at something real, but it can also mislead.</p> <p>The technical stack has not disappeared. Companies still have infrastructure, platforms, databases, applications, integration layers, security tools, endpoints and user-facing systems. Those layers still matter to architects and IT teams.</p> <p>The better point is more practical: Enterprise software risks are spreading across categories faster than management models are changing.</p> <p>A company may buy a tool for one function, but the risk might surface elsewhere. CRM automation often requires ERP inventory data. Workforce workflows typically depend on identity and access rules. Collaboration platforms can become the place where approvals, records, files and AI summaries show up. Desktop or mobile devices serve as the control point for applications, security policy and employee experience.</p> <p>That does not make all enterprise software one thing.</p> <p>It does make category-only thinking less useful.</p> <p>The old model assumed that each major software area could be managed mostly within its own lane. ERP handled core business records and transactions. HR managed employee processes. CX owned customers. Collaboration handled communication. EUC controlled endpoints and access. Security and compliance applied across all of them, but often as separate control layers.</p> <p>That model still exists.</p> <p>It just does not describe enough of the work anymore.</p> <p>The business process crosses the category line. So does the data. So does the user experience. So does the risk.</p> <p>The management model must catch up.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="ERP is not the only system, but it still matters"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>ERP is not the only system, but it still matters</h2> <p>ERP vendors like to describe ERP as the <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/system-of-record-SOR">system of record</a>.</p> <p>Sometimes that is useful. Sometimes it is marketing. Sometimes it is both.</p> <p>For many enterprises, ERP still holds some of the most important operational and financial data. It may define products, suppliers, orders, inventory, invoices, revenue, cost and planning assumptions. If that data is wrong, incomplete, fragmented or poorly governed, problems can ripple into other software categories.</p> <p>That matters more as AI moves closer to the work.</p> <p>An AI assistant, automation or agent may live inside a CRM, HR, service, collaboration or analytics tool. But if it needs ERP data to answer a question, recommend an action or trigger a workflow, the quality of the answer depends on data and context outside the visible application.</p> <p>The user may think they are working in one system. The answer depends on several.</p> <p>That is where the system-of-record claim becomes less about vendor positioning and more about practical governance.</p> <p>If ERP is the trusted record for a decision, then the company needs to know what that means. Which data is trusted? Which process created it? Which system owns it? Which permissions apply? Which workflow is already acting on it? Which exceptions should block action?</p> <p>If ERP is not the trusted record for that decision, the company still needs an answer.</p> <p>The point is not that every enterprise process should return to ERP. That would be too simple. The point is that shared data foundations matter more when software starts acting across categories.</p> <p>AI does not remove that problem. It exposes it.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Collaboration tools are becoming work surfaces"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Collaboration tools are becoming work surfaces</h2> <p>The category blur is also visible in collaboration and communications software.</p> <p>These tools used to be easier to describe. People sent messages, held meetings, shared files and made calls. That still happens, but collaboration platforms are now closer to the work itself.</p> <p>Sales approval may occur in a chat thread. Service escalations move through team channels. Project decisions now live in a meeting summary. Finance questions get answered by a bot pulling from multiple systems. A manager experiences HR, operations, IT support and customer issues through the same collaboration interface.</p> <p>That changes the role of the platform.</p> <p>The collaboration tool is no longer only where people talk about the work. It can become the surface where work is found, summarized, routed, approved and remembered.</p> <p>That is useful.</p> <p>It is also risky if governance remains tied only to the underlying application categories.</p> <p>Who owns the record when the discussion happens in one place and the decision is stored somewhere else? What happens when AI summarizes a meeting that affects a customer, employee or supplier process? Which retention, access and compliance rules apply when work crosses from a system of record into a communication layer?</p> <p>Those are not only collaboration questions. They are enterprise software questions.</p> <p>The same is true for end-user computing. The desktop, browser, mobile device and <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterprisedesktop/definition/unified-endpoint-management-UEM">unified endpoint management</a> environment increasingly shape how users reach applications, enforce policies, protect data and experience AI features in daily work. The desktop matters less as a destination and more as a control point.</p> <p>That is another sign that software categories still exist, but the operating problem crosses them.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Categories still help, but they do not contain the work"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Categories still help, but they do not contain the work</h2> <p>Enterprise software is not becoming category-free.</p> <p>The categories still help. They give people language, ownership and structure. They help buyers compare products and leaders assign accountability. They also reflect real differences in data models, workflows, user needs and vendor ecosystems.</p> <p>But the work is increasingly cross-category.</p> <p>The data is cross-category.</p> <p>The user experience is cross-category.</p> <p>The risk is cross-category.</p> <p>That does not mean companies should stop managing ERP, HR, CX, collaboration and EUC as distinct software areas. It means they also need a management layer that understands what happens among those areas. Leaders still need to know which application does what -- but equally important is understanding what happens between applications.</p> <p>That is where more enterprise software risk now lives.</p> <p>The next step is governance. If the work crosses categories, then ownership, controls, data rules and ROI questions must follow. That is why cross-category governance is the next software challenge.</p> <p><em>James Alan Miller is a veteran technology editor and writer who leads Informa TechTarget's Enterprise Software group. He oversees coverage of ERP &amp; Supply Chain, HR Software, Customer Experience, Communications &amp; Collaboration and End-User Computing topics.</em></p> </section> Enterprise software categories still matter, but more work, data and risk now move between them. Strategy must account for the blur. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/security_g1204196785.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/feature/Enterprise-software-is-harder-to-manage-by-category Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:15:00 GMT <p>AI-powered clinical knowledge platform OpenEvidence has <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/openevidence-launches-evidencegrade-empowering-physicians-to-see-the-strength-of-cited-evidence-beneath-each-ai-answer-302822750.html">launched</a> a new feature that grades the quality of published evidence cited in AI answers in real time, enabling clinicians to understand the strength of the provided evidence before relying on it to make treatment decisions.</p> <p>OpenEvidence said that the new feature, called EvidenceGrade, is the latest step in the company's "broader effort to bring rigorous evidence appraisal to clinicians at the point of care."</p> <p>In March 2026, OpenEvidence announced a <a href="https://www.cochrane.org/about-us/news/cochrane-evidence-inform-openevidence-users">partnership</a> with Cochrane, a global nonprofit that produces independent reviews of medical research. Building on this partnership, EvidenceGrade was constructed on the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation, or <a href="https://www.cochrane.org/learn/courses-and-resources/cochrane-methodology/grade">GRADE</a>, framework, an approach for assessing evidence and supporting healthcare decision-making used by Cochrane, the World Health Organization and other clinical guideline developers.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="How EvidenceGrade works"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>How EvidenceGrade works</h2> <p>When a physician asks &nbsp;OpenEvidence a question and receives an answer, EvidenceGrade first determines whether the question at hand boils down to a clear evidentiary claim. The system filters out simple definition lookups and queries focused on tasks like summarization.</p> <p>Once the question has been determined to be gradeable, each published paper included in the answer is rated for quality, certainty and relevance and receives a grade from A to D. Grade A means that the evidence used rigorous systematic reviews, whereas grade D could mean that the evidence consists of preclinical or animal data and cannot be relied upon.</p> <p>In a <a href="https://www.openevidence.com/blog/introducing-evidencegrade-grading-the-strength-of-medical-evidence-in-real-time">blog post</a> accompanying the announcement, OpenEvidence explained that users have long been requesting a systematic assessment of the strength of the evidence surfaced in its answers. However, manually grading medical evidence is time-consuming and challenging. As a result, only a fraction of the questions clinicians ask in practice are subject to formal evidence appraisals.</p> <p>EvidenceGrade is OpenEvidence's attempt to bring the transparency of evidence grading to physician users without sacrificing speed, the blog post explained.</p> <p>"Not all evidence is equally certain, and when a clinician acts on an answer, it's imperative they understand how much weight the underlying evidence can bear," Samuel Finlayson, M.D., senior vice president of medical AI at OpenEvidence, said in the announcement.</p> <p>"Expert research appraisal teams do invaluable work, but they can't cover every question that comes up in everyday practice. We built EvidenceGrade to extend their methods to as many questions as possible. We see it as a complement to traditional evidence synthesis, and we're releasing it as a starting point that will improve as the clinical community helps us refine it."</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="OpenEvidence vs. general-purpose AI tools"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>OpenEvidence vs. general-purpose AI tools</h2> <p>OpenEvidence has gained significant popularity since its founding in 2021 and is now&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/openevidence-ai-doctor-medical-physician-login-app-what-npi-uptodate-rcna341064">used by nearly two-thirds of U.S. physicians</a>. However, a study published in n<i>ature medicine </i>in June 2026 found that <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/healthtechanalytics/news/366644497/General-purpose-AI-beats-out-specialized-clinical-AI-in-some-assessments">general-purpose AI tools like GPT-5.2 and Claude Opus 4.6 could outperform specialized LLM-based clinical AI tools</a> such as OpenEvidence and UpToDate Expert AI on multiple medical benchmarks.</p> <p>The study raised questions about the value of creating proprietary clinical AI tools for specific industries versus using general-purpose tools or developing hospital-specific LLMs.</p> <p>In a LinkedIn <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7471713099587211264/">post</a> responding to the research, OpenEvidence argued that the paper and its benchmarks are "clearly ill-equipped to judge clinical decision support tools or draw conclusions about specialized clinical AI," alleging that the authors have an "obvious" conflict of interest and "inattention to basic data contamination concerns."</p> <p>Days after the <i>nature medicine</i> study was published, OpenEvidence reached out to a UCSF researcher to conduct a new study, <i>STAT</i> <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2026/07/09/openevidence-backs-study-that-finds-it-beats-llms-health-tech/">reported</a>. OpenEvidence reportedly supplied the data, paid the survey respondents and co-developed the data collection plan.</p> <p>The <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.28960">preprint</a> results compared OpenEvidence to general-purpose tools and found that "physicians scored the specialized tool highest on all axes," in complete opposition to the <i>nature medicine</i> study.</p> <p>OpenEvidence did not disclose its involvement in the study, nor are its executives listed as authors. As the AI race continues, specialized platforms like OpenEvidence will likely face increased competition from tech behemoths like OpenAI and Anthropic.</p> <p><em>Jill Hughes has covered health tech news since 2021. Her coverage areas include cybersecurity, HIPAA compliance, interoperability, AI and EHRs.</em></p> </section> A new feature in OpenEvidence provides real-time grading of the quality of published evidence cited in AI answers, in an effort to promote transparency and accuracy. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/ai_a238006601.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/healthtechanalytics/news/366645822/OpenEvidence-adds-real-time-evidence-quality-grading-to-AI Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:06:00 GMT <p>In the modern, data-led, artificial intelligence (AI) era, the role of the chief financial officer (CFO) is rapidly transforming. Companies are no longer looking for someone to simply ensure the numbers add up; they want a strategic business partner who will boost performance.</p> <p>There’s a new raft of artificial intelligence (AI-)powered tools available to support CFOs and finance teams, which can improve forecasting, automate routine processes, and generate insights from large volumes of data quickly and accurately.</p> <p>Here, four CFOs share the latest tools that have helped modernise their finance function, and the impact of AI on finance teams, both now and looking ahead.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="EuroTeleSites"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>EuroTeleSites</h2> <p>While its financial backbone is SAP, EuroTeleSites has been using AI-powered <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/The-tech-helping-organisations-manage-their-finances">financial planning and analysis</a> (FP&amp;A) software Farseer since last year. This is a relatively new tool, which is already having a significant impact on improving finance procedures at the firm.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>EuroTeleSites manages more than 13,800 mobile phone towers across six countries in central and eastern Europe, including Austria, Croatia and Slovenia. This forms the foundation of digital telco infrastructure across the region, and managing thousands of widespread tower-assets across six markets is highly complex.</p> <p>“Having up-to-date data is business critical for us operating across such a wide area, and ensuring close collaboration between finance and IT is key to ensuring data quality, system integration and security,” says Lars Mosdorf, CFO at EuroTeleSites. “Our finance teams work closely with other business functions too, to ensure we are linking financial performance with operational and strategic priorities.”</p> <p>AI is helping to enhance the understanding of data across the organisation.&nbsp;“By consolidating and standardising data from a wide range of sources, Farseer helps us to centralise all relevant financial control information. The tool gives us the transparency we need to take swift decisions,” Mosdorf says.</p> <blockquote> <div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/Lars-Mosdorf-EuroTeleSites-PR-140px.jpg" alt="Headshot of Lars Mosdorf."> </div> <p><strong><span style="color: #34495e;">“By consolidating and standardising data from a wide range of sources, Farseer helps us to centralise all relevant financial control information”</span></strong></p> <p><em><span style="color: #34495e;">Lars Mosdorf, EuroTeleSites</span></em></p> </blockquote> <p>Using a tool such as Farseer has enabled the company to move away from traditional Excel-based processes. As a single source of truth, it ensures data accuracy and consistency, with all team members working from the same up-to-date information, and able to collaborate seamlessly. Cross-team collaboration outside the finance department has also become more dynamic and effective.</p> <p>This has resulted in reporting and planning processes becoming around 30% faster, while the risk of errors has been notably reduced, by more than 40% when it comes to planning. Farseer’s AI functionality has been of particular value during the firm’s internal reporting periods.</p> <p>“As controllers, we know how time-critical these periods can be, and the AI Analyst helps us identify the key drivers behind any deviations across our business units,” notes&nbsp;Mosdorf. “These capabilities are helping provide us with sharper insights into the performance of individual EuroTeleSites units, ensuring that our reporting is not only faster, but also more meaningful.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="PostHog"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>PostHog</h2> <p>Developer platform <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/product-analytics">PostHog</a> uses four different tools to manage its finances. For expense management, it relies on Brex – recently acquired by Capital One for more than $5bn – to oversee a permissive expense policy similar to Netflix, asking people to spend money in the best interests of the firm.</p> <p>“Brex allows us to do that through giving everyone corporate cards, but also having good controls and AI,” explains Fraser Hopper, ops and finance lead at PostHog. “It uses a lot of agent stuff in there to try and track spending, and flag to us any things that are weird, generally fraud prevention, but also just in case someone is not spending in the best interest of PostHog.”</p> <p>To get money into the company, PostHog built its own&nbsp;billing system, which leverages Stripe for charging customers through&nbsp;either credit card or invoicing. The company has a relatively complex usage-based&nbsp;billing system, with 13 paid products plus additional packages on top, so maintaining the&nbsp;flexibility to grow has been very important.</p> <p>Since the start of 2026, PostHog has added two new finance tools. For its accounting&nbsp;ERP, it has recently moved to Campfire, an AI-native ERP. And for FP&amp;A, it uses Abacum, which takes all the data from its ERP and connects it to headcount&nbsp;data from its HR system. Abacum lets the firm do all kinds of analysis to build its budget,&nbsp;offering a view of what&nbsp;under and over performance would look like, modelling hiring faster or slower, or spending more&nbsp;in marketing or AI.</p> <p>“We can easily simulate different scenarios without a huge amount of input due to&nbsp;the flexibility that Abacum brings,” Hopper says.</p> <p>Since adopting these AI tools, PostHog has been able to give financial data to the business faster and get accurate data much faster. Previously, a company of its size wouldn’t have prioritised getting its accounts published a few days into the month.</p> <p>“We would have maybe had them towards the end of the&nbsp;month or even creeping into the month after, which meant the rest of the business was flying blind,” Hopper says.</p> <blockquote> <div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/Fraser-Hopper-PostHog-PR-140px.jpg" alt="Headshot of Fraser Hopper."> </div> <p><strong><span style="color: #34495e;">“Tools like Abacum are very crucial for us, as we can get that data in real time. If it wasn’t for the ability to tag that data using AI, we wouldn’t get this out fast enough”</span></strong></p> <p><em><span style="color: #34495e;">Fraser Hopper, PostHog</span></em></p> </blockquote> <p>The firm can now get accurate accounts data very quickly, as closing its accounts now takes fewer than 10 days rather than the previous 20 to 25 days.&nbsp;“This means we can get better info back to the company as fast as possible so that every team within the business, whether that’s marketing, sales, products teams, they can use that to impact the business in a positive manner faster,” he adds.</p> <p>It helps the business course-correct much quicker too, as it can now see things happening in real time – for example, hosting costs against revenue numbers.</p> <p>“If we are getting that information 45 to 60 days after the time,&nbsp;it can sometimes be too late,” Hopper notes. “This is why tools like Abacum are very crucial for us, as we can&nbsp;get that data in real time. If it wasn’t for the ability to tag that data using AI, we wouldn’t&nbsp;get this out fast enough.”</p> <p>Using these AI tools means the finance team isn’t growing as fast as previously would have been necessary. “We can leverage&nbsp;talent density to keep a leaner team that can do more with less,” Hopper explains.</p> <p>Instead, the more technical team are using coding agents to unlock faster routes to quicker, more accurate work and building workflows using tools such as Abacum to move faster.</p> <p>“This buys us back more time to focus on that big ‘How do you grow the business?’ question, rather than just trying to keep the business-as-usual stuff ticking over,” he adds.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Emergn"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Emergn</h2> <p>Anjana Mistry’s remit at Emergn is both as CFO and COO, spanning finance, operations, legal, commercial, HR and IT. She expects all these functions to work together and the data flowing between them has to be trustworthy at every point.</p> <p>NetSuite sits at the core of the business as its ERP, and provides the data foundations everything else depends on. “That foundation matters more than people realise,” Mistry says. “If the base data is not clean, consistently structured and in a format the systems can actually use, everything built on top of it is suspect – your dashboards, your forecasts, your analysis.”</p> <p>Moving to NetSuite was a turning point on the finance side. Month-end, quarter-end and year-end closes that used to take a fortnight now wrap up in a few days, and forecasting is no longer something the business braces itself for every quarter.</p> <p>Alongside the NetSuite foundation is Pulse, a tool built in-house that brings together time recording, revenue forecasting, project management and people management, offering a single source of truth across those dimensions. Emergn uses Power BI for dashboards and operational reporting, while for the hands-on analytical work, it still relies heavily on Excel with pivots.</p> <p>“Anyone who tells you they have moved beyond it is usually being economical with the truth,” Mistry says.</p> <p>What has changed is how the company works within the Microsoft finance staple. It has started using AI tools in Excel, which has shifted how fast it can move on modelling and variance analysis. Tasks that used to take half a day now take a fraction of the time, and the quality improves as less time is spent building and more time on interrogating.</p> <p>Emergn is also using intelligent automation through Microsoft Power Platform for repetitive, time-consuming workflows, project accounting, revenue projections integrated with its CRM, and operational reporting across multiple functions. The clearest early wins are in the rules-based work that had previously consumed so much capacity, such as transaction coding and invoice processing.</p> <p>While technology can enhance efficiency and support better decisions, Mistry maintains that human judgement, experience and oversight remain key elements of the CFO role.</p> <p>“Having an AI tool in Excel does not make you an accountant,” Mistry says. “These tools augment the skills of trained, experienced finance professionals, they do not replace the knowledge, the judgement or the professional accountability that sits behind the work. A tool is only as valuable as the person using it, and in finance that person needs to know what they are looking at, what questions to ask, and when the output does not look right.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Liberty Global"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Liberty Global</h2> <p>At <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252476776/Liberty-Global-Europe-shakes-up-executive-leadership">Liberty Global</a>, where the finance team uses Oracle as its core ERP system, Oracle Hyperion was deployed as its&nbsp;consolidation tool. However, as the business has gone from being a cable company with&nbsp;presence in 17 countries, to being an integrated communications company across four countries, it concluded that Hyperion&nbsp;was not a tool fit for the level of complexity and evolving needs of the group.&nbsp;</p> <p>It decided to switch to OneStream, prompted by two of its businesses – VodafoneZiggo in the Netherlands and Telenet in Belgium – already using or planning to deploy the finance platform.</p> <p>OneStream gives the firm the potential to automate large parts of its workflows, in particular the business-as-usual workflows, explains Alex Johnstone, divisional CFO at Liberty Global. “This will evidently result in freeing up time to be far more strategic about what drives value in the business and how to allocate capital better,” he adds.</p> <p>Johnstone envisages OneStream not just as a consolidation tool, but as its financial system of record. All the underlying management accounts of each of its operating businesses will be directly connected into OneStream, which means there will be a single source of truth.</p> <p>“It will enable a lot of efficiency for us at the group level to build independent analysis reports for the various operating businesses that we own without having to necessarily go into those businesses,” he adds. “We collect an enormous amount of information from those businesses, a lot of it unstructured. So, think about their internal management reporting, commercial reports, third-party earnings, all that information can be utilised to create very rich reports about how these businesses are performing.”</p> <p>As a self-confessed recent AI convert, Johnstone feels the technology will have a huge impact on the finance sector. First, all the repeatable rudimentary work that exists will be automated, tasks like journal entries, consolidations, and eliminations. Finance specialists will evolve to direct these tools with their judgment and their experience, rather than just carrying out basic tax or accounting tasks.&nbsp;</p> <p>“For your finance generalist,&nbsp;your business partner, your FP&amp;A lead that’s looking more holistically at the business,&nbsp;you’re going to have a lot more free time,” he says.</p> <p>A lot of their time used to be taken up by report generation, and trying to get the context and insight, which can now be covered by dynamic forecasting.</p> <p>“You’re then a problem solver, you’re a partner to the business saying, ‘This is the insight we have’,” Johnstone says. “And you’re going to be spending much more time thinking about and partnering with these tools to dimension the impact of potential, whether it’s operational changes, strategic pivots or episodic transactions. A far larger percentage of your time will be spent on the strategic elements of finance as opposed to the blocking and tackling.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Conclusion"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Conclusion</h2> <p>Smart CFOs will invest now in the latest AI tools to ensure their departments are equipped to become strategic business partners. By automating repetitive tasks, AI lets finance professionals spend more time on analysis and value creation, moving far away from the basic accounting function of old.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more executive interviews</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Spending time with penguins in the Falkland Islands may not seem an obvious background for an IT leader, but it’s worked for Nic Granger as <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366584095/CIO-interview-Nic-Granger-director-of-corporate-and-CFO-North-Sea-Transition-Authority">she sets out to overhaul the way data is used in the oil and gas sector</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366638906/Interview-Pure-Storages-Niki-Armstrong-on-achieving-more-with-less-in-sustainability">Think about sustainability as a product in itself</a>, urges Pure Storage’s legal and corporate sustainability leader.</li> <li>Zendesk once pushed its AI vision, but now customers are leading the charge. Its CTO, Jason Maynard, explains how this <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366629313/Zendesk-CTO-on-the-new-era-of-customer-experience">reversal is creating roles like the ‘bot manager’ and shaping the future of customer experience</a>.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> AI-powered finance tools are helping firms boost revenue. Four CFOs reveal the investments their companies have made to modernise the finance function https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/banking-finance-growth-2-adobe.jpeg https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/How-CFOs-are-using-AI-based-finance-tools-to-boost-revenue Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:40:00 GMT <p>When used correctly, AI is an excellent force multiplier. It can automate routine tasks, assess massive data sets and improve efficiency across an organization.</p> <p>The key, of course, is that organizations are using it correctly. <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/feature/Futurists-predict-whats-next-for-AI-and-emerging-technology">AI technology is constantly evolving</a>, so it can be difficult for businesses to keep up with what it is capable of and what data it should have access to.</p> <p>Machine-speed work can result in machine-speed mistakes, which might require some serious cleanup efforts. As more organizations emphasize <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatamanagement/feature/Operational-resilience-is-a-benchmark-for-executive-success">strengthening resilience</a>, AI-related mishaps can become a roadblock.&nbsp;</p> <p>Here are four real AI-related incidents that put organizational data at risk and damaged resilience efforts.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="1. Bye bye, production database"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>1. Bye bye, production database</h2> <p>In April of this year, there was a high-profile AI incident at PocketOS, a software vendor. Despite being instructed otherwise, an AI coding agent had deleted a production database, while still providing the user with what it thought should be the correct outcome.</p> <p>This is <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/feature/Enterprise-AI-horror-stories-for-CISOs">not an uncommon incident</a>; many users lose data to faulty agents because the agents are drawing incorrect conclusions from the data provided.</p> <p>The primary lesson here: don’t blindly say yes to the AI. It’s critical to understand what the AI is doing and not giving it carte blanche over the environment. Ensure production is gated as much as possible and <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/feature/Humans-and-AI-The-role-of-people-in-the-new-AI-world">keep a human in the loop</a> wherever possible as a sanity stop switch.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="2. Build an app, show it to the world (company data included)"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>2. Build an app, show it to the world (company data included)</h2> <p>Users who are empowered with AI might create usable products, but many don’t understand that system security and data privacy can create an AI incident.</p> <p>Unfortunately, when companies fail to provide an environment to host these ad-hoc applications they're placed on third-party tools that have live, confidential company data. This use of unsanctioned AI tools for company data is <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/Shadow-AI-How-CISOs-can-regain-control-in-2026">referred to as shadow AI</a>, and it's a major concern as AI tools proliferate.</p> <p>Earlier this year, Community Bank, a regional bank in Pennsylvania, dealt with this very issue. Rather than an outside attacker, an employee of the bank exposed sensitive customer information by uploading that data into an unauthorized AI application. Not only was this a reputational hit, but it also resulted in the bank <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahbarsky/2026/05/18/employees-ai-shortcut-triggers-sec-filing---boards-take-note/">filing a Form 8-K to the SEC.</a></p> <p>Leadership can mitigate a crisis like this by ensuring users have internal infrastructure to host and demo their products, safe in the knowledge the data won’t be scooped up by some bad actor scanning the internet for just this type of information. The costs of developing such a system are trivial when compared with cleanup costs and potential liabilities.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="3. Trusted but not verified"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>3. Trusted but not verified &nbsp;</h2> <p>Everyone knows AI systems can hallucinate, despite best efforts. Users can tell agents to verify everything and "do not hallucinate," but there is no way to guarantee it will work. Professional services network KPMG found that out only too well when <a target="_blank" href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/13/kpmg-pulls-report-on-ai-usage-due-to-apparent-hallucinations/" rel="noopener">they released a report</a> stating factually incorrect AI usage tied to actual real-life entities.&nbsp;</p> <div class="youtube-iframe-container"> <iframe id="ytplayer-0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ebsej2-__Bk?autoplay=0&amp;modestbranding=1&amp;rel=0&amp;widget_referrer=null&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.techtarget.com" type="text/html" height="360" width="640" frameborder="0"></iframe> </div> <p>The fallout was significant, resulting in a <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdisasterrecovery/tip/How-to-manage-and-mitigate-reputational-risk">serious reputational loss</a> for KPMG. Had those named entities been so inclined, this could have ended up in court.</p> <p>The best way to mitigate or prevent a disaster like this is to make sure that someone is actually reading the documents AI produces, verifying the data sources and recognizing the algorithms that manipulate the data. Often, subtle bugs can result in numbers that are slightly off or just completely wrong.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="4. Legal chatbots, illegal suggestions"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>4. Legal chatbots, illegal suggestions</h2> <p>The NYC MyCity chatbot became <a target="_blank" href="https://www.envive.ai/post/case-study-nycs-mycity-chatbot" rel="noopener">a legal minefield</a> when it gave NYC business owners incorrect legal information, including misrepresenting the minimum wage and fabricating claims about stores being cashless. Not only was this AI incident bad PR, but it also eroded trust in the accuracy an official city website.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> Lawyers carry liability insurance. A chatbot doesn’t. </figure> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>On the user end, mitigation for this is simple: Don’t trust the chatbot as a source of truth, and pay a proper legal professional when it involves significant risk. Chatbots frequently <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcustomerexperience/tip/6-risks-of-ChatGPT-in-customer-service">make up answers</a> to please the user, so any responses should be taken with a grain of salt. &nbsp;</p> <p>For organizations, it's critical that any official company chatbots are monitored not only for preventing private data leaks, but making sure the answers and advice provided are accurate and don't put the organization at risk. If a company chatbot gives incorrect, falsified or irresponsible answers, that creates a liability for the organization. Lawyers carry liability insurance. A chatbot doesn’t.</p> <p><i>Stuart Burns is an enterprise Linux administrator at a leading company that specializes in catastrophe and disaster modeling.</i></p> </section> AI can be a helpful tool when users respect its limitations and verify what it claims to be fact. If not, the impact on the organization can be catastrophic. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/ai_a377464305.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searchdisasterrecovery/tip/AI-incidents-that-harmed-resilience-efforts Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:48:00 GMT <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Executive summary</h3> <p>Author Nick Pogrebnyakov shares his vision for mass automation and what it means for CIOs:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li><b>Think beyond AI.</b> Build automation strategies that integrate AI, robotics and sensing rather than treating them as separate initiatives.</li> <li><b>Avoid creating tomorrow's silos.</b> Design AI agents and workflows to work together across the business instead of becoming isolated systems.</li> <li><b>Prepare for more autonomous enterprises.</b> As automation expands, CIOs will increasingly orchestrate automated systems rather than manage individual processes.</li> <li><b>Use imagination to prepare for the future.</b> Pogrebnyakov's "biz-fi" approach encourages leaders to envision how companies could operate in an AI-driven world before those changes arrive.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p><i>AI agents can automate individual tasks and processes, but the next frontier may be automating entire companies.</i></p> <p><i>Science fiction has long imagined flying cars, autonomous robots and other futuristic technologies. Yet, it rarely explores the organizational details behind those technologies, such as who builds them, who markets them and what a company looks like when much of its work runs autonomously. </i></p> <p><i>This gap inspired Nick Pogrebnyakov, author and former business school professor turned AI practitioner, to write </i>Mass Automation: Rethinking Companies for an AI Era When They Can Operate Autonomously<i>. He calls the book a work of "biz-fi" -- a blend of business strategy and speculative fiction designed to help business leaders imagine how AI, robotics and sensing could lead to nearly automated companies, or mass automation, in the near future. </i></p> <p><i>Rather than focusing solely on AI, Pogrebnyakov argues that CIOs should think about how AI, robotics and sensing work together as part of a broader automation strategy. This requires avoiding technology silos, not letting AI overshadow investments in sensing and robotics, and preparing for a future in which </i><a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/which-it-jobs-will-ai-change-most-tech-leaders-weigh-in"><i>humans increasingly orchestrate automated systems</i></a><i> rather than run them directly.</i></p> <p><i>In the following Q&amp;A, Pogrebnyakov discusses the ideas behind </i>Mass Automation<i> and how CIOs can prepare their organizations for a more autonomous future.</i></p> <p><b>Editor's note:</b> The following transcript was edited for brevity and clarity.</p> <p><b>What is your background?</b></p> <p>Nick Pogrebnyakov: I have a PhD in Information Science and Technology, which is an interdisciplinary program that brings together people from machine learning (ML), computer science, anthropology and business. The idea is that if you unite people from different backgrounds to work on a problem, you get an interesting result.</p> <p>After graduating, I worked for 13 years as an associate professor at Copenhagen Business School, where I researched and taught <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/CIOs-guide-to-emerging-tech-trends">technology strategy</a>, international business, how companies work, how companies move abroad and how they use technology. Then I moved to the industry side, where I started working as an AI researcher and ML engineer. I worked at several companies, including Thomson Reuters and Twitter, and I've headed an AI startup.</p> <div class="imagecaption alignRight"> <a href="https://www.archwaypublishing.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/867743-mass-automation" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow"><img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/mass_bookcover.jpg" alt="An image of the front cover of the book, Mass Automation"></a>Click the cover image to <br>learn more about this book. </div> <p><b>Why did you decide to write <i>Mass Automation</i>?</b></p> <p>Pogrebnyakov: It started as an idea from reading science fiction. When you read sci-fi, you see all these interesting technologies, such as space travel and flying cars, which may or may not come to pass -- and some of them have already been implemented. The questions I've found lacking in sci-fi are "Who actually makes all of these flying cars?" and " Who finds customers to travel to distant stars?"</p> <p>They're interesting questions because as we get increasingly used to AI being everywhere, we need to know <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/agentic-ai-case-studies-for-cios">how to bring it into our organizations</a>. How do we restructure our companies for the AI age? This is a question that needs an answer.</p> <p><b>How can reading sci-fi, or in the case of your book's genre -- "biz-fi" -- help business and tech leaders in their careers?</b></p> <p>Pogrebnyakov: Biz-fi is my call to business leaders and the broader ecosystem that trains them to use more imagination.</p> <p>Sci-fi provides us with ideas for products. Even before something can be implemented, such as a flying car, it's already been thought of 50 years ago. However, we don't have a similar blueprint for organizational forms, such as how we run processes and think about <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/Pillars-of-an-agentic-AI-strategy">strategy in an AI world</a>. For example, if you can have an agent that can formulate and implement a strategy for your company:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li>What permissions do you give it?</li> <li>How does it work with internal systems within the company with other agents?</li> <li>We know how AI agents work in specific workflows, such as software development, but what happens when they begin coordinating entire business functions?</li> <li>Who is working inside these companies?</li> <li>What are the jobs that humans do?</li> </ul> <p>There are a lot of questions we don't have answers for, and if we put out some wild ideas, even though they might not come to pass, we at least stimulate some thinking about how we can restructure companies for the AI age.</p> <div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/pogrebnyakob_nick.jpg" alt="A headshot of Nick Pogrebnyakov">Nick Pogrebnyakov </div> <p><b>What are the three pillars of automation, and why are they important?</b></p> <p>Pogrebnyakov: AI, robotics, and sensing. The reason I talk about them separately is twofold. First, this is how people behave. We perceive the world -- this is our sensing. This maps to <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/iotagenda/tip/AI-and-IoT-How-do-the-internet-of-things-and-AI-work-together">organizations collecting and interpreting data</a>. Then we decide what to do next -- this maps to AI decision-making. Then there's taking actions in the physical world, such as moving a box -- that's robotics. These pillars move at very different development speeds. For instance, AI is everywhere, whereas robotics, despite being very mature, gets much less coverage than it should.</p> <p>Sensing is probably the least talked about of the three, even though it's foundational to both AI decision-making and robotics. A lot of the debate in the AI world right now is about how to provide models with organizational context so that an AI agent can make good decisions. It's the same for robotics. If you don't have a good perception of what's happening in the world, you will get poor outcomes. This is a reason to treat them separately.</p> <p>At the same time, I want to bring the attention of leaders, such as CIOs, to the fact that all three are needed -- depending on which company you're at. Don't forget about them, because you need to integrate them. The power of an automated company comes from integration.</p> <p>CIOs must avoid creating silos. That's why we need to talk about them together and look at what your company is doing today, where there is under-investment and where there is over-investment.</p> <p><b>Why should CIOs, specifically, read this book?</b></p> <p>Pogrebnyakov: So, they don't treat technologies in isolation. CIOs have a lot demanding their attention, and the strongest signal today is AI. <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/the-top-cio-challenges-ai-hype-security-and-rapid-change">Everybody is asking them how to create agents</a> for this and that, but they mustn't forget about the other parts of automation. Are you underinvesting in sensing? The book aims to create a balanced perspective across the three pillars and envision what an automated company could be.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> Everybody is asking [CIOs] how to create agents for this and that, but they mustn't forget about the other parts of automation. </figure> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>You might have an automated marketing function that creates marketing campaigns, runs them and has a dashboard for a human to see. Then, you might have a manufacturing function that creates the physical products with a dashboard for how it's performing. There are already dark factories that operate with few humans -- automated manufacturing. But who oversees these functions? There should be an orchestrator of different functions, so manufacturing doesn't get ahead of sales. For instance, you don't want sales to sell 1,000 units if manufacturing can only make 100.</p> <p>As CIOs build AI into the business, they must bring together the different pillars and ensure all company functions run at similar speeds. To do this, they can ask the following:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Are we building AI silos today in the way we create agents, codify processes and transform them into agentic workflows?</li> </ul> <ul class="default-list"> <li>How do we build explainability?</li> <li>How do we <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/tip/Agentic-AI-governance-strategies-A-complete-guide">make sure processes are reliable</a>?</li> <li>How do we ensure AI agents don't have competing goals?</li> <li>How do we make processes explicit?</li> </ul> <p><b>Do you believe that mass automation -- nearly automated companies -- is the direction that organizations and civilization should be heading?</b></p> <p>Pogrebnyakov: I'm careful not to say that we <i>should </i>be doing this. The idea is that <i>this might happen</i>, and if it does<i>, </i>we had better prepare for it.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> I'm careful not to say that we should be doing this. The idea is that this might happen, and if it does, we had better prepare for it. </figure> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>If it happens, there are consequences for companies and the economy. For example, we might see the economy and companies split into two modes. One is maintenance, and the other is development. Maintenance is when a product just runs – it doesn't need many improvements.</p> <p>Development is when you need to actively develop a new product or make significant refinements to an existing one. Many of the products currently in development mode might be moved to maintenance mode. Just let people consume that and redirect energy to creating new products and processes. We might also see AI tools, such as the orchestrator I mentioned, actively looking for new strategies. How do you make new products? How do you enter new markets with little human involvement aside from approval at the end?</p> <p>When I was at a business school, I created an AI agent that developed a strategy in a simulated environment and showed it to about 1,000 students working in a similar simulation. They were all happy with the strategies that the agent discovered. There are several implications for where this might go, and I want us to be prepared for that.</p> <p><b>What other advice do you have for CIOs?</b></p> <p>Pogrebnyakov: As CIOs think about how to automate processes, they might consider monetizing the processes they automate. For instance, once you develop a well-functioning marketing pipeline for your industry, can you sell that capacity?</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> As CIOs think about how to automate processes, they might consider monetizing the processes they automate. </figure> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>Another one is containerization. Many CIOs come from a tech background. They're familiar with Docker containers, which contain everything an application needs to run. You can think of companies themselves as Docker containers. You can package all that a company needs -- accounting, marketing, production -- into one piece of software and possibly hardware and sell it as a company.</p> <p>If OS automation comes to pass, it unlocks a golden age for entrepreneurship, because we'll be able to pull together pre-built containerized companies or individual company functions and assemble them into a company easily. Then, we can implement whatever business idea we were dreaming about. In Silicon Valley, there is a bet right now on who's going to build the first one-person unicorn company, or when it will be built. That means a person who's running a billion-dollar company themselves.</p> <p>Shapeshifting is another possibility. It's when you start in one industry and see an opportunity to move to another. With the automated discovery of possibilities and assembly of company components, you can do that more easily. For example, Nokia transformed from a pulp mill to a rubber boots company to a mobile phone manufacturer to a telecommunication company.&nbsp;Mass automation will enable this kind of shapeshifting on a much grander scale.</p> <p><em>Tim Murphy is a site editor and writer for the IT Strategy team at TechTarget.</em></p> Fully automated companies might not be as futuristic as they seem. CIOs should consider how AI, robotics and sensing will work together to shape the future of automation. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/iot_g1212287865.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/Fully-automated-companies-What-CIOs-need-to-know-about-the-future-of-automation Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:38:00 GMT <p>This week in tech saw Microsoft cut 4,800 employees in its latest round of layoffs, xAI rebrand to SpaceXAI, Reddit crack down on AI-generated slop -- by using its own AI -- and Meta’s new AI image generator, Muse Image, faces critique.</p> <p>Here's what you need to know from the week starting July 6, plus the latest updates in IPOs and executive leadership.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Microsoft cuts 4800 employees"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Microsoft cuts 4800 employees</h2> <p>Microsoft <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2026/07/06/the-latest-in-our-company-transformation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> on 6 July 2026 that it would eliminate 4,800 jobs, or roughly 2.1% of its global workforce. The move comes as the company continues to spend heavily on AI infrastructure. The cuts are concentrated in the company’s commercial and gaming division, with Xbox employees <a href="https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/07/06/resetting-xbox/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notified</a> that the division will be reduced by 3,200 positions.</p> <p>“I also want to be direct that the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI. At the same time, what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done,” wrote Amy Coleman, executive vice president and chief people officer.</p> <p>Though Microsoft is framing the layoffs as a broad restructuring rather than directly <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/is-ai-replacing-workers-cios-weigh-in">AI-related</a>, it signals that large technology companies are reallocating capital toward AI while tightening spending elsewhere.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="xAI rebrand to SpaceXAI"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>xAI rebrand to SpaceXAI</h2> <p>Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, was officially rebranded as SpaceXAI, marking the next phase in its integration with SpaceX. Alongside the name change, the company unveiled a new <a href="https://x.com/SpaceXAI/status/2074214064746832060?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2074214064746832060%7Ctwgr%5E834966100c7738c2b9e95f7b2dd956934df72563%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fxai-rebrand-spacexai-new-logo-x-handle-spacex-2026-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">visual brand</a> that aligns closely with SpaceX, reinforcing the closer relationship between the two organizations.</p> <p>For enterprise leaders, the move reflects a wider trend of AI becoming deeply embedded within core business operations rather than existing as a separate product or business unit.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Reddit cracks down on AI slop"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Reddit cracks down on AI slop</h2> <p>This week, Reddit announced increasing efforts to tackle AI-generated spam, or <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/AI-Slop-The-hidden-enterprise-risk-CIOs-cant-ignore">AI slop</a>.</p> <p>Reddit is deploying its own AI to fix the issue. “To stay ahead of the curve, we’re using AI to expand our capability for detecting manipulated and spammy content through new signals and faster enforcement,” the company wrote in a <a href="https://redditinc.com/news/how-were-keeping-reddit-real-and-safe-in-the-ai-era" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blog post</a>. According to the post, by using their own AI tools, Reddit has blocked 23 million spam views per day.</p> <p>Reddit's crackdown on AI-generated slop reflects a growing recognition among major technology companies that consumers are experiencing <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/Beating-AI-fatigue-Quick-wins-for-CIOs">AI fatigue</a> and increasingly value authentic, human-centered content.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Meta's new image generator causes controversy"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Meta's new image generator causes controversy</h2> <p>Meta launched Muse Image on July 7, its new AI image generator.</p> <p>Muse Image allows users to generate images from text prompts, combine photos and edit images. However, less than one day after launch, users complained that the AI image generator can incorporate photos from public Instagram accounts into AI-generated images unless account holders disable the feature.</p> <p>Meta’s Muse Image launch is a reminder to tech leaders that AI image tools, and similar, will need clear policies on user consent and acceptable use.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Executive moves"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Executive moves&nbsp;</h2> <ul class="default-list"> <li><b>Chris Stoddard. </b>Jitterbit announced the appointment of Chris Stoddard as CRO on July 7, effective immediately.</li> <li><b>David Burton.</b> Colt Data Centre Services (Colt DTS) appointed David Burton as CIO on July 6. Burton joins the company from Global Switch Data Centres, where he was group director of information.</li> <li><b>Brian Moffatt.</b> AI research company, NLP Logix, this week appointed Brian Moffatt as CTO, as the company looks to expand its AI capabilities.</li> </ul> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="IPO watch"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>IPO watch</h2> <p>The U.S. IPO market remains a key indicator of broader tech sentiment. Here's a look at the latest listings and activity from the past week, based on data from the Nasdaq IPO calendar:</p> <h3>Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. III</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>A blank check company.</li> <li>Opening/trading day: July 7.</li> <li>IPO price: $10/share.</li> </ul> <h3>Freedom Metals Acquisition Corp.</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>A special purpose acquisition company.</li> <li>Opening/trading day: July 8.</li> <li>IPO price: $10/share.</li> </ul> <h3>Columbus Circle Capital Corp III</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>A blank check company.</li> <li>Opening/trading day: July 9.</li> <li>IPO price: $10/share.</li> </ul> <h3>Mercator Acquisition Corp.</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>A blank check company.</li> <li>Opening/trading day: July 9.</li> <li>IPO price: $10/share.</li> </ul> <h3>SK hynix Inc.</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>A memory chip manufacturer.</li> <li>Expected opening/trading day: July 10.</li> <li>IPO price: $158.14/share.</li> </ul> <p><i>Rosa Heaton is a content manager and writer for the IT Strategy team at TechTarget.</i></p> </section> Stay up to date with the latest U.S. tech news, IPOs and executive moves shaping the industry each week. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/maze_g467037520.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/Weekly-news-roundup-Microsoft-layoffs-Muse-Image-controversy-xAI-rebrand-and-Reddit-ends-AI-slop Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:11:00 GMT <p>When Microsoft moved a mission-critical financial application from an aging on-premises SAP ERP Central Component (<a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsap/definition/SAP-ERP-Central-Component-SAP-ECC">ECC</a>) system to S/4HANA, SAP's next-generation ERP, the six-month project culminated in a digital high-wire act. Extended downtime could prove disastrous for a system that holds 70 TB of data and manages billing for Xbox purchases, subscriptions for Microsoft 365 office apps and enterprise agreements, among others.</p> <p>"This is basically our SAP system that is the back end for all of our commerce scenarios," said Melinda van Honschooten, the Microsoft SAP solution architect who led the project. "It's a very high-volume, high-revenue scenario, and it is incredibly important to the running of our business."</p> <div class="imagecaption alignRight"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/van_honschooten_melinda.jpg" alt="Melinda van Honschooten, Principal SAP Solution Architect, Microsoft">Melinda van Honschooten </div> <p>The company would have to painstakingly ensure that the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sap.com/products/financial-management/billing-revenue-innovation-management.html" rel="noopener">application</a>, SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (BRIM), ran correctly on the new ERP and that its data was correct. And it would have to pull off the cutover in an unusually short time for such a large system.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Vessels of the SAP mothership"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Vessels of the SAP mothership</h2> <p>Microsoft began using BRIM around 15 years ago, and the software grew steadily more important as more lines of business were onboarded. But lately it wasn't keeping up with the company's growth, according to van Honschooten.</p> <p>"We realized we had some blockers remaining in ECC in our ability to process the amount of data and support the business scenarios we needed," she said. "Being able to keep up the scaling was really the thing that put us over the edge."</p> <p>Another major benefit of migrating to <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsap/definition/SAP-S-4HANA">S/4HANA</a> would be the read performance of its HANA in-memory database, which is significantly faster than the ECC's SQL database. Month-end accounting processes that took eight hours on ECC had a cumulative effect on the high-volume, batch-oriented system but could be reduced to half an hour on S/4HANA.</p> <p>"Some of our biggest jobs were getting progressively longer. And, because of the volumes we were putting through the system, we were having issues with meeting schedule times," she said.</p> <p>Being able to pursue modern integration strategies and use AI to optimize processes were other strong reasons to migrate. Plus, new features are only available in the S/4HANA version of BRIM, according to van Honschooten. SAP's promise to <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsap/news/366618912/Rise-With-SAP-will-extend-support-deadline-for-some">end mainstream ECC support</a> at the end of 2027 was another factor.</p> <p>She said BRIM is the first "really big" system Microsoft has <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsap/SAP-S4HANA-migration-A-definitive-guide">moved to S/4HANA</a>. The company has been a major SAP customer since the 1990s and is undergoing a gradual, multi-phase migration from ECC.</p> <p>Before BRIM, it had moved a much smaller system for master data governance and implemented one for its U.S. federal government business directly on S/4HANA, she said.</p> <p>The company still has one large ECC system it has used for nearly 30 years for finance-centric processes, such as core financials, procure-to-pay and order-to-cash, as well as HR.&nbsp;</p> <p>"The mothership SAP system is still on ECC, and we have a multi-year project in the works to move that to S/4 as well, but it's a much harder job," van Honschooten said.</p> <p>All the SAP systems run on <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcloudcomputing/definition/Windows-Azure">Azure</a>, Microsoft's public cloud.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Selective migration is no small task"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Selective migration is no small task</h2> <p>After a couple false starts, Microsoft began discussing moving BRIM to S/4HANA around 2021 but put the project aside to work on a major credit-and-collections project. Serious planning with a small team began in 2024, and the full project team hit the ground running in February 2025.</p> <p>Microsoft's team of around 50 SAP specialists was responsible for migrating the BRIM code, including refactoring and testing to ensure it ran correctly on S/4HANA. SNP Group, an IT consultancy, <a href="https://www.snpgroup.com/en/resources/customer-stories/microsoft/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">handled data migration</a>, and a team from SAP's premium advisory service, MaxAttention, served as trusted advisors. Business leaders and partner engineering teams performed <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsoftwarequality/definition/regression-testing">regression testing</a> to ensure the new system functioned properly, according to van Honschooten.</p> <p>Much of the work would be dedicated to moving BRIM's massive database. "The biggest tables in the system are over 12 billion rows," van Honschooten said. "We're adding millions of rows every day, and we're archiving millions of rows every day."</p> <p>An initial assessment predicted downtime would last five days, which the business could not tolerate. "We were not going to be able to do the project unless we could fit it into a weekend," she said.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> We were not going to be able to do the project unless we could fit it into a weekend. </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Melinda van Honschooten</strong>Principal SAP solution architect, Microsoft </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>So Microsoft and SNP brainstormed how to shrink the downtime window closer to the size of a typical window. They determined that taking the system down Friday afternoon U.S. Pacific time and getting back online by midday on Sunday would work because that's Monday morning in Manila, where Microsoft has a large offshore operation. The window was now down to 24 hours.</p> <p>To get the <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/feature/12-cloud-ERP-data-migration-best-practices">data migration job</a> itself to a manageable size, Microsoft chose SNP's Bluefield selective migration, which involves only moving certain data and processes to S/HANA. In contrast, the <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/definition/brownfield-site">brownfield</a> method moves everything with minimal changes, which means fewer decisions to make. But it has two major drawbacks: Outdated processes and redundant data typically move to the new system, and some of its advanced features aren't activated.<b> </b>SNP says Bluefield enables companies to leave behind inefficiencies and get the reliability and stability of a brownfield migration while modernizing on the new platform.</p> <p>"Generally speaking, selective migration means you don't have to bring the whole system over," said SNP CTO Steele Arbeeny. "Maybe you have 10 years of history and you only want five, or you only have certain product lines that you want to migrate the data for." The result is an optimized system with a smaller footprint and lower costs, he said.</p> <div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/arbeeny_steele.jpg" alt="Steele Arbeeny, CTO, SNP Group">Steele Arbeeny </div> <p>SNP's method and tools enabled a phased approach of pre-loading significant amounts of the most static data to the target system and then only moving the deltas -- data that changed while the migration was taking place -- on the go-live weekend, van Honschooten said.</p> <p>She said the team didn't have to create complex data-conversion rules and instead relied on SNP and Microsoft <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatamanagement/definition/data-validation">data validation</a> tools to make sure the deltas were 100% "on point" and the changes were captured accurately. It also used an SNP tool called Kyano Validate to validate trillions of fields after go-live.</p> <p>"We split the migration into an uptime portion, where the system's still running, but we're migrating all inactive data from previous years -- data that's not going to change," Arbeeny explained. "We bring that all over while the system is running, and then we take our downtime event and just do that catch-up period where we bring over anything that's changed during the uptime portion of the migration."</p> <p>Around half the downtime window was taken up by SNP's data migration, while Microsoft used the other half to verify the system was correct by starting and stopping processes, for example.</p> <p>Arbeeny said the size of the system, volume of transactions and narrow downtime window required by the global nature of BRIM's operations created a need for additional infrastructure, hardware and capacity to pump the data through within the downtime window and "get the elephant through the eye of the needle."</p> <p>Full-scale mock migrations were conducted in a sandbox identical to the production environment, and SNP maintained a "dual landscape" as a safeguard throughout the process, according to its website.</p> <p>As for migrating BRIM itself, van Honschooten said a challenge arose from changes in how bank accounts are managed in ECC vs. S/4HANA.</p> <p>"If you've got a custom field that is implemented the old way, an in-place conversion on a 10-billion-row table is incredibly hard to do," she said. "It's much easier to do it in a blank table and then do a migration into it." That meant custom fields had to be re-implemented in the new system.</p> <p>The team also fixed several currencies to comply with the three-letter ISO currency codes used in S/4HANA.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="How the move has benefitted Microsoft"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>How the move has benefitted Microsoft</h2> <p>After going live in August 2025, once it was clear the new BRIM system was stable, the team began addressing a laundry list of improvements.</p> <p>"Post-conversion, we were able to do some pretty big things, which were fairly quick wins," van Honschooten said.</p> <p>One was re-jiggering the batch schedule so data processing could run faster and the company could "de-risk" month-end accounting. Another was renovating the interfaces to data services by moving away from older SAP technology that used web services and remote function call (RFC) technology. As a result, integration with Microsoft's front-end systems is "much more performant," she said.</p> <p>The migration also facilitated improvements to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP system that the company uses as a front end to its credit and collections operations. It can now embed the <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsap/definition/SAP-Fiori">SAP Fiori</a> UX framework directly in Dynamics 365, which van Honschooten called a huge accelerator for lower-volume collections formerly requiring "swivel chair" integration that saw workers manually copying data from the old SAP UX to the new one.</p> <p>Arbeeny noted the cascading benefits of faster data processing. "When your night batch takes 12 hours and you get it down to four, many opportunities become available for other things you can do," he said. "It's underpinned by the innovation in the technical stack as well as in the application layer. With that extra capacity, you can do more with the same level of infrastructure, and that opens the door for agentic."</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Enabling Agentic AI"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Enabling Agentic AI</h2> <p>Van Honschooten said her team is, indeed, working on <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/agentic-AI">agentic AI</a>, specifically for cash applications and collections where incoming customer payments must be matched with invoices.</p> <p>The matching rate in the cash apps transformation, which started two years ago on ECC, has skyrocketed from 30% to around 85% on S/4HANA. The company is also implementing a smart dunning process that provides a better understanding of individual customers instead of following a fixed schedule. Agentic AI helps automate the inbound emails and other collections processes run through Dynamics 365.</p> <p>"We're systematically going through all our workflows in that space and determining how we can better reduce the amount of people we need to be able to respond to customer inquiries and predictively understand when a customer is going to dispute an invoice so we can take action before the dispute gets raised," she said. Days sales outstanding (<a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchbusinessanalytics/definition/days-sales-outstanding-DSO">DSO</a>) metrics should improve by getting more customers to pay on time.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="'Cleaner core' approach to cloud ERP"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>'Cleaner core' approach to cloud ERP</h2> <p>SAP and many of its partners have been <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsap/feature/SAP-clean-core-approach-changes-game-for-SIs">promoting a "clean core" methodology</a> that calls for keeping the core of an ERP system focused on standard business processes and free of customization. But Arbeeny was adamant that Microsoft needed to move BRIM to private-cloud S/4HANA rather than the public-cloud version, which tends to strictly enforce clean-core rules.</p> <p>He called clean core an oversimplification, saying some of Microsoft's customizations are mission-critical and that <i>cleaner core</i> is a more realistic term. "We can get better, but the reality that you're going to eliminate all those customizations that are mission-critical is really unrealistic," he said. "They're there for a reason. You built them because they make you who you are."</p> <p>Van Honschooten clarified that the ECC to S/4HANA project was not about trying to re-implement all the customizations. Nevertheless, SNP's Bluefield approach to data migration enabled targeted improvements that move the company closer to a cleaner-core environment. She cited re-implementing custom fields to clean-core standards as an example.</p> <p>She advised organizations planning a similar data migration to keep it simple and to not try to do too much. And leave plenty of room in the schedule for mock migrations. "We learned so much and got better and better each time. We ended up having a pretty clean conversion at the end of the day because we were able to practice it."</p> <p><i>David Essex is an industry editor who creates in-depth content on enterprise applications, emerging technology and market trends for several Informa TechTarget websites.</i></p> </section> Extensive code testing and SNP's selective data migration ensured safe 24-hour cutover of the SAP BRIM system Microsoft uses for Xbox billing and other usage-based commerce. https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/folder-files05.jpg https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/feature/How-Microsoft-moved-an-SAP-ECC-billing-system-to-S-4HANA-private-cloud Fri, 10 Jul 2026 09:30:00 GMT <p><span style="font-weight: 400">IBM called its agentic software development platform Bob.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Was this because Big Blue wanted another three-letter acronym to sit alongside IBM perhaps? Bob could mean Best of Breed. Or it could relate to Bob the Builder to tally with the “build” process that software engineers engage in.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Equally, it could just be an anthropomorphism to make Bob sound as human as Claude (which derives its name from </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon"><span style="font-weight: 400">Claude Shannon</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, obviously).</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Actually, it’s none of those, apparently IBM likes to keep that part a secret.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">What’s not a secret are Bob’s new multi-agent capabilities, built-in AI cost and use analytics tools, and its pre-built specialised workflows for modernising enterprise systems.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">According to IBM, now that organisations are using AI to write massive amounts of code, their software development challenges have moved to other parts of the process with 85% of DevSecOps professionals surveyed agreeing that AI has shifted the bottleneck from writing code to reviewing and validating it.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">“IBM Bob is architected to bring AI capabilities wherever software engineering work happens. Rather than limiting AI to a single development interface for isolated tasks, Bob provides a unified foundation for teams to coordinate across the software development lifecycle,” states the company.</span></p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Accelerated development workflows"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i><span style="font-weight: 400">Accelerated development workflows</span></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Using IBM Bob, developers are said to be able to accelerate development workflows, improve code quality, and gain deeper insights into decades of accumulated system knowledge while gaining efficiency.</span></p> <div id="attachment_12164" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12164" class="wp-align wp-image-12164 size-medium" src="https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/1780241270917-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/1780241270917-300x300.jpg 300w, https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/1780241270917-150x150.jpg 150w, https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/1780241270917.jpg 400w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"> <p id="caption-attachment-12164" class="wp-caption-text">IBM’s <span style="font-weight: 400">Sundaresan: Bob can now optimise across the execution system, not just model selection.&nbsp;</span></p> </div> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Bob can now “optimise across the execution system”, not just model selection.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">This notes is made in relation to the fact that the execution system is the entire operational environment where Bob orchestrates multi-agent workflows. It coordinates parallel tool calling, isolates context windows using subagents, and dynamically routes specific tasks to the most cost-effective models.&nbsp;</span></p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Matches models a la mode"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i><span style="font-weight: 400">Matches models a la mode</span></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Bob matches models to tasks, coordinates AI execution across agents, and provides organisations with visibility into productivity, quality, performance, and cost through the newly launched Bobalytics, to help enterprises optimise AI at scale.</span></p> <blockquote> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">“Bob is the platform enterprise customers have been asking for,” said Neel Sundaresan, GM, automation and AI, IBM. “The bar for enterprise AI is no longer a better coding assistant. It’s an end-to-end agentic development partner that works inside any system development teams already use, with the governance, security, and cost controls enterprises require. We built Bob to solve the problems enterprises actually have, and the updates we’re announcing today are the foundation for everything that comes next.”</span></p> </blockquote> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Engineering teams also encounter unique challenges as they move beyond code generation and apply AI to larger, more complex work like updating legacy applications or modernising IBM Z, IBM i, and Java environments.</span></p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="High-stakes, multi-phase projects"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i><span style="font-weight: 400">High-stakes, multi-phase projects</span></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">AI output can vary depending on how the work is done, which can create significant issues for high-stakes, multi-phase projects. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Structured, repeatable workflows help reduce that variability so teams can deliver reliable, auditable results at enterprise scale.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">IBM Bob now has pre-built workflows available that teams can customise and extend for their own environments to ensure outcomes are consistent and auditable, regardless of who runs it. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Further, IBM Bob Premium Packages for IBM Z, IBM i, and Java Modernisation are each opinionated workflows built on decades of IBM’s domain experience that optimise AI for enterprise teams that need to do large-scale modernisation.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">&nbsp;</span><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-align alignnone wp-image-12163" src="https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/Bob-AI-coding-agent_banner.png" alt="" width="580" height="234" srcset="https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/Bob-AI-coding-agent_banner.png 4752w, https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/Bob-AI-coding-agent_banner-300x121.png 300w, https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/Bob-AI-coding-agent_banner-1024x414.png 1024w, https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/Bob-AI-coding-agent_banner-768x310.png 768w, https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/Bob-AI-coding-agent_banner-1536x621.png 1536w, https://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/cwdn/files/2026/07/Bob-AI-coding-agent_banner-2048x827.png 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px"></p> </section> IBM called its agentic software development platform Bob. Was this because Big Blue wanted another three-letter acronym to sit alongside IBM perhaps? Bob could mean Best of Breed. Or it could ... https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/CW-Developer-Network/IBM-Bob-bolsters-boosts-broadens-AI-driven-software-application-development Fri, 10 Jul 2026 06:47:00 GMT <p>As the country melted under the third heatwave this summer, the channel wheels kept turning with acquisitions, distributors signing vendors, and some well deserved recognition for MSP advocates.</p> <p><strong>Barracuda:</strong> The move to acquire Evo Security will strengthen the vendor’s capabilities around identity security and bolster its BarracudaOne platform. The supplier has been keen to stress the advantages from the deal for its MSP channel base, which will now get access to additional security technologies.</p> <p>Rohit Ghai, <a href="https://www.barracuda.com/">Barracuda</a> CEO, stated: “In the agentic AI [artificial intelligence] era, protecting both human and non-human identities is imperative for delivering cyber resilience. Existing enterprise identity solutions are complex, costly and fail to meet the needs of MSPs that must scale to securely manage millions of identities across thousands of customer environments. We are thrilled to combine Evo Security’s partner-first innovation with our vision of BarracudaOne and offer a complete, intelligent, easy and open platform that closes this gap. As AI accelerates the speed and scale of identity-centric attacks, this combination is uniquely positioned to help organisations big and small stay ahead of these threats.”</p> <p><strong>Arrow Electronics:</strong> The distributor has been signed by ABB Electronics to handle the firm’s power supply portfolio. The two firms have an existing relationship on the electronic components side, but this marks an extension of the products the distie can get into the hands of its channel partners.</p> <p>Mike Worby, head of strategic alliances at <a href="https://www.arrow.com/globalecs/na/">Arrow’s enterprise computing solutions</a> business in EMEA, stated: “This agreement strengthens our long-running collaboration with ABB and brings important new capabilities to our channel partners. Power protection is a vital part of any modern IT design, and the addition of ABB uninterruptible power supplies means our customers can work with a broader and more complete set of solutions.”</p> <p><strong>TD Synnex Datech:</strong> Sticking with the distribution theme, the design software side of the distie’s business is going to be working with Autodesk to deliver the vendor’s partner programme in Europe. The two firms have an existing relationship working along similar lines in North America.</p> <p>“The Scale Partner Programme is a key progression of Autodesk’s channel evolution, as it transitions from traditional volume models towards more scalable, digitally driven, and partner-aligned frameworks,” said Jaap Smit, senior vice-president of <a href="https://uk.tdsynnex.com/portfolios/datech">Datech</a> at TD Synnex. “Datech will help partners scale their Autodesk business more efficiently across multiple markets. By combining automation, operational support and deep Autodesk expertise, we can unlock new growth opportunities for partners while helping expand Autodesk’s reach across Europe.”</p> <p>The distributor has also landed a pan-European distribution agreement with storage player Vawlt Technologies, which has a timely sovereign data solution that should appeal to partners.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Security partnership"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Security partnership</h2> <p><strong>Giacom:</strong> The channel player has added to its portfolio with a relationship struck with MSP-friendly security firm Huntress. At the same time, the vendor also appointed MSP Nordics to cover that region.</p> <p>“Scaling security across regions depends on trusted relationships within those markets,” said Kevin Hallmark, head of global distribution at Huntress. “<a href="https://giacom.com/">Giacom</a> and MSP Nordics bring the relationships, regional expertise and partner-first approach needed to help us equip more MSPs to defend businesses across the UK and Nordics that remain most exposed to today’s cyber criminals.”</p> <p><strong>Durabook:</strong> The rugged mobile solution specialist has cut the ribbon on a new partner programme that promises to support its channel with enhanced benefits and a structured deal registration process.</p> <p>“Durabook’s Vanguard Partner Program is an important advancement in the company’s continued investment in our partner ecosystem,” said Sasha Wang, president at <a href="https://www.durabook.com/en/">Durabook Americas</a>.</p> <p><strong>MSP Finance Team:</strong> Industry group GTIA has been sharing details of its awards with MSP Finance Team landing the GTIA Associate Member Spotlight Award. The award was given in recognition of the work done, extensively by <a href="https://mspfinanceteam.com/">MSP Finance Team’s</a> co-founder Daniel Welling, to promote the managed service community over the past decade.</p> <p>“Adam Morris and I have benefited enormously from the MSP community throughout our careers, so we’ve always believed it’s important to give something back,” said Welling. “Whether that’s volunteering with GTIA, hosting community meet-ups, sharing knowledge through our podcast or bringing people together at our events, it’s all about helping MSPs learn from one another and build stronger businesses.”</p> </section> Developments this week at Barracuda, Arrow, TD Synnex, Giacom, Durabook and MSP Finance Team https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/German/article/data-manuscript-stack-paper-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/microscope/news/366645819/Channel-catch-up-News-in-brief Fri, 10 Jul 2026 05:45:00 GMT <p>With the global automotive industry now firmly pivoted towards electrification and software-defined vehicles, <a href="https://www.bmwgroup.com/en.html">BMW Group</a> has made a strong commitment to connected technologies to boost safety, vehicle drive, infotainment functionality and user experience – and to offer a “second-to-none” connected vehicle service, it has announced a collaboration with Verizon Business and KDDI.</p> <p>With its four brands, BMW, Mini, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad, the BMW Group claims to be the world’s leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles, as well as premium financial services. The firm’s production network comprises over 30 sites worldwide, and it has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.</p> <p>The deal will see Verizon provide <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366634071/Verizon-Business-delivers-neutral-host-network-to-KPMGs-New-York-City-office">5G standalone and LTE connectivity</a> directly to BMW Group vehicles in the US, delivering exclusive telematics support for the <a href="https://www.bmw.co.uk/en/shop/ls/cp/connected-drive">BMW Connected Drive system in</a> newly manufactured vehicles.</p> <p>Another key consequence is that Verizon will now provide telematics connectivity for new BMW, Mini and other BMW Group vehicles manufactured for the US market. This is intended to deliver cellular connectivity directly to BMW Group vehicles, enabling BMW Connected Drive and other digital infotainment, remote, app and telematics services.</p> <p>These vehicles are the first to be connected to Verizon’s nationwide <a href="https://www.verizon.com/business/solutions/industry/automotive/">5G Standalone for Connected Vehicles</a> offering using its 5G core and 3GPP Release 16 industry standards for 5G standalone.</p> <p>The deal also stems from Verizon’s long-standing relationship with KDDI, which provides internet of things (IoT) services through its proprietary <a href="https://www.eu.kddi.com/en/services/connected-car-solution/">Global Communications Platform</a> to BMW Group and global connected services to original equipment manufacturers in various other industries.</p> <p>KDDI’s platform is designed to enable a programmable connected experience for BMW Group, giving the automaker control of the connectivity and data packets flowing through Verizon’s 5G network. The service is available for all newly manufactured BMW Group vehicles in the US.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about software-defined vehicles</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643055/Software-defined-vehicles-enter-era-of-AI-driven-value-creation">Software-defined vehicles enter era of AI-driven value creation</a>: Survey shows smart diagnostics and predictive maintenance emerging as top use cases for AI in software-defined vehicles industry, but expected monetisation yet to materialise.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366636964/Volkswagen-looks-to-deliver-advanced-infotainment-and-connectivity-capabilities">Volkswagen looks to deliver advanced infotainment&nbsp;and connectivity capabilities</a>: Global auto manufacturer unveils primary tech provider for the launch of its zonal software-defined vehicle architecture, providing high-performance system-on-chips for infotainment capabilities starting in 2027.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642839/Interview-How-Volvo-built-software-for-a-two-and-a-half-tonne-moving-object">How Volvo built software for a two-and-a-half-tonne moving object</a>: Volvo Cars is the only legacy carmaker in the world rated at the highest level of software-defined vehicle capability by S&amp;P Global Mobility. Its chief engineering and technology officer, Anders Bell, tells us how this happened.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366622135/Renault-charges-Ampere-to-drive-future-with-software-defined-vehicles">Renault charges Ampere to drive future with software-defined vehicles</a>: With software-defined vehicles key to bringing it closer to customers, auto manufacturer deploys digital chassis solution to accelerate the time it takes to roll out new features to cars.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p>Commenting on the deal, Verizon Business CEO Kyle Malady said: “Verizon is committed to delivering seamless connectivity for customers. Our collaboration with BMW Group and KDDI prioritises innovation and capability to advance the connected experience for drivers across the US.”</p> <p>Satoshi Oishi, president and CEO at KDDI America Inc, said: “At KDDI, we are honoured to support BMW Group’s next-generation connected vehicle services with our Global Communications Platform. With over two decades of experience in connected car telecommunications, we understand the critical importance of performance and reliability. Together with BMW Group and Verizon, we are committed to delivering an exceptional connected driving experience to customers across North America.”</p> <p>In 2025, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366630498/IAA-Mobility-BMW-drives-to-software-driven-future-with-Snapdragon-Ride-Pilot">BMW Group launched an automated driving (AD) system</a> for its iX3 car, the first production vehicle in its Neue Klasse line. The AD system is built on <a href="https://www.qualcomm.com/products/automotive/snapdragon-ride">Snapdragon Ride</a> system-on-chips (SoCs) from Qualcomm&nbsp; Technologies, using a Snapdragon Ride AD software stack developed by both companies. It supports AD levels ranging from entry-level New Car Assessment Program to Level 2+ highway and urban navigation on autopilot capabilities.</p> <p>In addition, the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366626435/Autonomous-vehicle-technology-market-set-to-roll">ADAS system</a>&nbsp;in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0452449EN/the-bmw-group-at-the-iaa-mobility-2025-speeches-and-imagery">BMW iX3</a>&nbsp;integrates automotive-grade SoCs for centralised sensor data processing, advanced computer vision modules for perception, and a Snapdragon Ride AD software stack including drive policy and safety guardrails.</p> <p>Capabilities supported include contextual lane change and overtaking, which initiates manoeuvres based on subtle driver cues such as mirror glances or steering nudges; active lane change and highway assistant offering hands-free driving on approved road networks; ecosystem-provided artificial intelligence-powered slot detection for parking assistance; and camera-based in-cabin monitoring.</p> Leading comms provider named as US connectivity provider for global car manufacturer’s newly manufactured vehicles, delivering 5G standalone and LTE connectivity through partnership with Japanese telco https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/HeroImages/Qualcomm-BMW-iX3-Sep-2025-hero.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645676/Verizon-gears-up-as-BMW-US-vehicle-connectivity-provider Fri, 10 Jul 2026 05:00:00 GMT <p>On 30 September, a piece of US legislation that most people outside the datacentre industry have never heard of is due to quietly expire. The<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/933/text"> Federal Data Center Enhancement Act</a> sets minimum standards for federal datacentres, that cover uptime, power reliability, resilience and – crucially – protection against physical intrusion. When it sunsets, there is no replacement waiting. The floor simply disappears.</p> <p>It is tempting to read that as a narrow, US, governmental problem. I would argue it is the opposite. The timing tells you everything. We are removing a baseline for physically <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Data-centre-disaster-recovery-and-security">securing datacentres</a> at the precise moment AI is driving the largest and fastest infrastructure buildout the sector has ever seen.&nbsp;</p> <p>That combination should concern anyone who operates, finances or depends on a datacentre, wherever in the world they sit.&nbsp;</p> <p>To be precise about scope, the Act only ever bound US federal datacentres and the contractors that run them for government, never commercial operators. That is exactly why its lapse matters as a signal rather than a local rule change. When even the government's own floor is allowed to disappear, the baseline everyone else benchmarks against tends to go with it.</p> <p>The first reaction I usually hear is that other rules will catch it, FISMA and the NIST control catalogue still apply, after all. And they do, up to a point. But the Enhancement Act was the operational mandate, the thing that forced datacentre-specific implementation and assessment. Take it away and agencies are left with significant discretion over how, and whether, they apply physical protections. FISMA provides the principle. The Enhancement Act provided the practice. Principles without a mechanism to enforce them have a way of being interpreted generously.</p> <p>We have seen this film before. The Act's predecessor – the Federal Data Center Enhancement Act (FDCEA) – lapsed in 2022 and took years to bring back, even with bipartisan support and an obvious case for renewal.&nbsp;</p> <p>The risk here is not a single dramatic repeal that makes headlines. It is administrative drift, a requirement that quietly fails to return because nothing forces the issue. That is how security baselines erode: not with a decision, but with the absence of one.</p> <p>The obvious worry, that established operators will strip out physical security because a statute lapsed, isn't where the real exposure lies. Their existing facilities, their existing contracts and their own risk appetite keep that spending in place. The exposure is in the new builds.</p> <p>The AI-era expansions going up right now are specced and procured at extraordinary speed. Most of that capacity is private, built by hyperscalers and developers the federal mandate never bound. That is exactly why its loss matters. It was the one enforceable floor in the system, and once the public benchmark goes there is nothing firm left for the private builds to be measured against. Remove the mandatory assessment framework and physical security becomes something that can be quietly scoped down during procurement to hit a budget or a timeline, with no compliance flag and no formal alert. The gap does not open in the datacentres we already have. It opens in the ones we are racing to build.</p> <p>This is why the story matters well beyond US federal infrastructure. Every market is in the middle of the same race. The pressure to build AI capacity fast, and the temptation to treat physical security as a flexible line item, are universal. A regulatory sunset in Washington is simply the clearest illustration of a risk that already exists in every fast-moving build. Physical security is the easiest thing to quietly defer, and the hardest to retrofit once the concrete is poured.</p> <p>There is a deeper contradiction worth naming, too. Governments increasingly<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/data-centres-to-be-given-massive-boost-and-protections-from-cyber-criminals-and-it-blackouts"> classify datacentres as critical national infrastructure</a>, and rightly so. Pulling their security baseline at the same time runs in two directions at once. You cannot call something critical and simultaneously make its protection optional.</p> <p>The answer is not simply more regulation, although a sensible renewal would help. It is for operators to stop treating physical security as a compliance obligation that rises and falls with the statute book, and start treating it as core design.&nbsp;</p> <p>The consistent lesson from securing large-scale critical facilities is that physical security cannot be a set of disconnected tools: a camera here, an access reader there, bolted on at the end of a project timeline. It has to be designed as one integrated system from the start, where access control, video, identity and alarms work together and an anomaly anywhere triggers a coordinated response.</p> <p>The lapse of a law should not be the thing that decides whether that happens. For an asset we all agree is critical, to get its protection right should not require a mandate. But it would help if we stopped quietly removing the ones we already have.</p> <p><em>Kumar Sokka is CEO of </em><a href="https://www.acresecurity.com/en-gb"><em>Acre Security</em></a><em>, a global physical security provider</em></p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about datacentre security</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641487/UK-reliance-on-US-big-tech-companies-is-national-security-risk-claims-report">UK reliance on US big tech companies is ‘national security risk’, claims report</a>. UK government urged to follow European countries by backing technology based on open standards.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645540/UKs-largest-businesses-dangerously-exposed-to-cloud-outages">UK’s largest businesses dangerously exposed to cloud outages</a>. British businesses, particularly those in the FTSE 100, are dangerously dependent on large cloud providers, with hypothetical large-scale outages at AWS or Azure regions likely to cause major economic damage, according to the Cyber Monitoring Centre.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p></p> <p></p> The US Federal Data Center Enhancement Act expires soon and will remove critical physical security baselines. This risks eroding standards during the AI-driven global infrastructure boom https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/HeroImages/Cameras-Samos-Closed-Controlled-Access-Centre-CREDIT-Lydia-Emmanouilidou-hero.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/The-US-is-set-to-delete-a-datacentre-security-rule-Bad-timing Fri, 10 Jul 2026 04:52:00 GMT <p>The <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/The-death-of-the-mainframe-is-greatly-exaggerated-says-CA">mainframe has been written off more than once</a>, yet it remains stubbornly central to how the world’s largest organisations run. On IBM’s own reckoning, it sits behind 87% of all transactions worldwide, is favoured by 44 of the top 50 banks and retailers, and still processes the bulk of mission-critical workloads.</p> <p>In the <i>2025 BMC mainframe survey</i>, 97% of enterprises saw the mainframe as a long-term platform or a platform for new workloads – the highest figure in the survey’s 20-year history, with the positive perception even stronger among millennial and Gen Z respondents.</p> <p>Alessandro Galimberti, vice-president analyst at Gartner, was not surprised: “Whether you book an airline ticket, or someone swipes a credit card, or a citizen sits down to pay taxes – there is a mainframe running behind every task. No wonder there are more mainframe workloads now. We see several mainframe clients today. With a tiny hold on total IT spend, some mainframes command a major chunk of the world economy.”</p> <p>Kamal Matta, assistant vice-president of IT and security at food manufacturer Sonic Biochem Extractions, noted that while the technology world was obsessed with getting off the mainframe a decade ago, the conversation today is about how to build around it.</p> <p>Far from being obsolete, the mainframe is experiencing a bit of a renaissance because of how it is adapting to AI and quantum realities, Matta noted. Mainframes are actually less obsolete today than they were five years ago, he added, and have evolved from isolated legacy boxes into anchors of modern hybrid IT strategies.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Why mainframes rock"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Why mainframes rock</h2> <p>Ross Tisnovsky, partner at Everest Group, pointed to the fact that mainframes are now focused on being systems of record rather than systems of engagement or execution, which means they do not need to innovate much. Instead, they just need to provide efficient input/output (I/O) operations at high transaction volumes.</p> <p>“This is primarily due to architecture,” Tisnovsky said. “Unlike most server platforms, the mainframe offloads I/O to dedicated peripheral processors, which creates efficiency. They also do not hoard data or restrict data usage the way many SaaS [software-as-a-service] systems do. They don’t <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Cloud-egress-costs-What-they-are-and-how-to-dodge-them">limit the ability to take massive volumes of data in and out</a>.”</p> <p>By contrast, Tisnovsky noted that SAP recently <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/news/366643487/Disrupted-by-AI-SAP-grapples-with-exposing-its-ERP-data">rewrote its global application programming interface (API) policy</a> to explicitly restrict third-party, non-SAP agentic AI applications from directly interacting with SAP systems. “In my opinion, that is the main reason why there is often no business case to replace mainframes,” he said.</p> <p>In fact, IBM has created data integration interfaces to help plug mainframes into modern, API-based systems. “IBM has tried a lot to keep the platform fit. We see enterprises running not just old apps but also new apps on mainframes,” Galimberti said.</p> <p>Manoj Gupta, vice-president of IT at Restaurant Brands Asia, formerly known as Burger King India, added that the mainframe remains an unsung hero. “Mainframes remain strong where backward and forward compatibility is critical,” he said. “Few platforms can match their ability to run legacy applications while seamlessly supporting modern technologies, APIs and AI-driven services.”</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> Attempts to write from scratch, or to move massive monolithic applications off the mainframe, have been abandoned due to high cost, high failure rates and loss of quality. The conversation today is less about replacing systems and more about modernising business processes while leveraging decades of trusted infrastructure investment </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Rahul Rao, IBM India Systems Development Lab</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>Another reason for the mainframe’s continued relevance is its quantum-proof design. Galimberti noted that long before the industry was talking about quantum-era security, legacy platforms were already quantum-safe. Tisnovsky added that most modern IBM mainframes are already compliant with <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/post-quantum-cryptography">post-quantum cryptography (PQC)</a>.</p> <p>In terms of cost, Gupta noted that while mainframes can be expensive, their total cost of ownership is highly competitive for an organisation managing massive transaction volumes. “It also provides zero downtime and operational efficiency, and outweighs infrastructure replacement costs,” he added.</p> <p>There’s a hardware advantage too, at a time when graphics processing units (GPUs) account for the bulk of AI spending. Galimberti observed that the mainframe is a purpose-built platform, with IBM owning the supply chain, so price control is better than with GPU suppliers that change prices every few days.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Why mainframes struggle"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Why mainframes struggle</h2> <p>While upbeat about the mainframe’s relevance, Tisnovsky is concerned that <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366588232/Cobol-knowledge-crisis-threatens-Dutch-financial-systems">Cobol programmers are retiring</a>, creating a massive premium compared with cloud-native engineers.</p> <p>“Young computer engineers – for some reason – show a lot of resistance to learning a programming language that predates dinosaurs,” he quipped. “A platform that cannot be supported and maintained runs a real danger of becoming unstable, and that would have a direct effect on the business case to replace it.”</p> <p>Then there is the elephant in the room –&nbsp; mainframes are huge commitments and IBM’s dominance means the risk of lock-in is real.</p> <p>“An enterprise usually customises pieces of IT and builds them into its own form of a stack,” Galimberti said. “It’s up to that enterprise’s IT team whether the lock-in is way down this stack or somewhere up. You will still have a lock-in, but the margin of manoeuvre in the landscape always exists.”</p> <p>When it comes to <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/How-mainframe-modernisation-is-powering-government-digital-transformation">modernising mainframe applications</a>, Gupta said it is important to distinguish between modernising to reduce technical debt and modernising as a strategic investment. Many organisations, he said, have invested decades in developing business-critical applications which, over time, have been modernised, optimised and integrated with modern APIs, and moved to the cloud, with containers and other AI services.</p> <p>On the other hand, rewriting millions of lines of Cobol code or migrating to another platform for the sake of it provides little business value, “because migration itself brings substantial risks, including service disruptions, compliance challenges and performance uncertainties”, he added.</p> <p>Rahul Rao, distinguished engineer at IBM India Systems Development Lab, added that while the tech-debt discussion remains valid, it should not be confused with platform relevance.</p> <p>“Many organisations are modernising monolithic applications, development practices and data architectures to improve agility and innovation within the mainframe. Attempts to write from scratch, or to move massive monolithic applications off the mainframe, have been abandoned due to high cost, high failure rates and loss of quality,” Rao said. “The conversation today is less about replacing systems and more about modernising business processes while leveraging decades of trusted infrastructure investment.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Will AI kill the mainframe?"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Will AI kill the mainframe?</h2> <p>Some cloud suppliers such as <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252493443/AWS-eyes-mainframe-workloads">Amazon Web Services (AWS) have been eyeing mainframe workloads</a>, especially with the advent of AI. But ironically, enterprises tend to use AI to bring more value to the platform, Galimberti said.</p> <p>“Mainframe exits do not work. You spend anywhere around $20m to $40m on the exit and similarly huge numbers towards the end of the project, but the result is more work, not less. CIOs cannot afford that failure on their résumés.</p> <p>“A mainframe exit, even if successful, is not a cause for celebration but for another technology upgrade. Plus, if someone brought in mainframes decades back, they can still change the code easily for an upgrade. But in the distributed IT world, every seven years an upgrade-plus-testing cycle is only more work,” he explained.</p> <p>Rao said that, if anything, AI and quantum have made mainframes more relevant. “As organisations move from AI experimentation to enterprise-scale deployment, the focus is shifting to where and how trusted data is used. For industries such as banking, insurance, healthcare and government, the most critical data and highest-value transactions continue to run on mainframes.</p> <p>“Rather than moving sensitive data to external environments for insight generation through AI processing, organisations increasingly want to bring those capabilities closer to the data to enable real-time insights, lower latency and stronger governance. Modern mainframes have evolved to support exactly that, with highly performant on-chip AI acceleration,” he said.</p> <p>Matta noted that the IBM z17’s dedicated AI accelerators, for instance, allow banks and insurance companies to run complex AI models – like real-time fraud detection or instant credit-risk assessment – directly on live transactions with zero latency. “It’s a paradigm shift: bringing the AI to the data, rather than moving the data to the AI,” he said.</p> <p>On AI workloads, Gupta does not see mainframes competing with GPU clusters for large-scale model training. Instead, their strength lies in AI inference at the point of transaction, bringing intelligence to where the data already resides. This reduces latency, minimises data movement and supports real-time decision-making, while integrating with cloud-based AI platforms when needed.</p> <p>All in all, Galimberti noted that mainframes have both a big plus and a risk. “The advantages are resilience, stability, backward compatibility and absolute fitness for mission-critical applications. The skills part is what remains a main concern for customers. IBM’s ability to fix this gap will decide the future of the platform.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about IT in APAC</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>The world’s largest supplier of Rolls-Royce engine maintenance services is <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645474/SAESL-turbocharges-aircraft-engine-maintenance-with-data-and-AI">working with Kyndryl to modernise its IT infrastructure</a>, build a single source of truth for data, and scale up the use of AI across its business.</li> <li>The Filipino government will <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644982/Philippine-government-taps-Google-Cloud-to-deploy-AI-agents">equip public servants with Gemini Enterprise AI tools</a>, launch a cross-agency cyber defence alliance and upgrade subsea network infrastructure.</li> <li>Zoho’s ANZ lead Rakesh Prabhakar explains how <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645494/How-Zohos-full-stack-strategy-keeps-it-in-control-of-cost-and-sovereignty">building its own infrastructure</a> keeps the SaaS firm in control of cost, pricing and data sovereignty.</li> <li>At Dell Technologies World, APAC tech leaders reveal <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643327/How-APAC-companies-are-rewiring-their-tech-for-the-AI-era">how they are relying on hyperconverged infrastructure and digital sovereignty</a> to shield themselves from supply chain shocks.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> Once dismissed as legacy tech on the way out, the mainframe is being reframed as the trusted anchor of hybrid, AI-era architectures https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/mainframe-servers-storage-datacentre-4-kwarkot-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645760/AI-is-making-the-mainframe-harder-to-retire-not-easier Fri, 10 Jul 2026 03:34:00 GMT <div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src="https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-60-anniversary-logo-white-400px.jpg" alt="Computer Weekly 60th anniversary logo" width="226" height="117"> </div> <p><i>On 22 September 2026, Computer Weekly turns 60. To mark the milestone, we asked some of our friends - experts, parliamentarians, IT leaders and suppliers - for their perspectives on how tech has changed their lives over six decades. What's changed the most for you since then?</i></p> <p>As Computer Weekly celebrates its 60th anniversary this September, I find myself reflecting on a lifetime shaped by the digital age.</p> <p>My connection to technology predates my own life. My parents met while serving at <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/GCHQ-historian-Dave-Abrutats-mission-to-preserve-the-UKs-forgotten-signals-intelligence-history">Bletchley Park</a> during the Second World War. Knowing they were stationed at the very genesis of modern British computing, I came to appreciate technology’s power to change the course of history, but in combination with some very skilled humans - Churchill’s “geese that didn’t cackle”.</p> <p>The personal enabling of life through the computer came later - and it was genuinely transformative. I still vividly remember being the proud possessor of a BBC Micro, which, despite its limitations, delivered what seemed miraculous at the time when we were setting up my late wife Vicky’s cancer information charity, later CancerBACUP, now part of Macmillan Cancer Support.</p> <p>A key moment came in the mid-1980s, when I was legal director at hospitality conglomerate Grand Metropolitan. My first work computer was a Compaq “portable” - about as heavy as a sewing machine. It was neither elegant nor convenient, but it felt entirely revolutionary. I remember thinking: this changes everything.</p> <p>Later, at home, buying an Apple Mac Classic only deepened the fascination. These were not just tools. Having worked at Letraset in the 1970s, I understood its revolutionary impact on graphic design, not least for political leaflets. This was potentially an engine of personal and professional liberation.</p> <p>That word - liberation - is deliberate. My political philosophy has always been based on Ralf Dahrendorf’s concept of “life chances,” which he set out in his 1974 Reith Lectures. Dahrendorf spoke of the combination of “options” - the choices available to us - and “ligatures” - the social connections that give those choices meaning.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Life chances"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Life chances</h2> <p>I joined the Liberal Party in 1973 because it espoused a society where no one is enslaved by poverty, ignorance, or conformity. In those early decades of the digital revolution, I saw technology as an important expander of life chances. The internet, in particular, felt like the great democratiser - a force that could level the playing field between the powerful and the powerless.</p> <p>My professional contact with the edge of technological disruption came as head of legal services at London Weekend Television between 1980 and 1983. I wrote about the emerging legal wild west of cable and satellite television long before the internet arrived. We were wrestling then with transnational signal relays, copyright protection, and the harmonisation of European standards. When Napster arrived at the turn of the century, followed by file-sharing, iTunes, and eventually Spotify, I recognised the pattern immediately.</p> <p>The case for <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/This-rise-of-the-splinternet-Data-sovereignty-risks-and-responses">UK sovereign technological capability</a> has deeper roots than the recent debate over US tech dominance might suggest. With the backing of advisors such as myself, Paddy Ashdown - in his early days as an MP, before becoming the first Liberal Democrat leader after the merger of the Liberal Party with the SDP - challenged the way American extraterritorial reach under the Export Administration Act was compelling British firms to seek US permission before re-exporting or even relocating US-origin computer equipment, regardless of where it sat or who owned it.</p> <p>Four decades on, the dynamic we identified has become even more pronounced. <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Breaking-the-stranglehold-Responses-to-data-sovereignty-risk">Reliance on US hyperscalers for cloud infrastructure</a>, US-designed chips for AI compute, and American platforms for critical public services means the leverage Ashdown warned against is now baked in. The drive towards domestic AI capacity, open standards, and national compute infrastructure is the answer to the question he put to government then - and which deserves a clearer answer now.</p> <p>And subsequently, technology would constantly and irrevocably outpace existing law. The question was never whether disruption was coming. It was whether we were ready.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Downside risks"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Downside risks</h2> <p>Alongside the enormous potential, downside risks became impossible to ignore. As the historian Yuval Noah Harari has warned, the greatest danger facing liberal democracy is the concentration of data in the hands of a few. We witnessed the rise of what Shoshana Zuboff termed “surveillance capitalism” - an architecture in which citizens’ personal data is harvested and monetised, turning people into products rather than participants.</p> <p>Automated decision-making and machine learning began replicating and amplifying historic human biases. When an algorithm makes opaque decisions about a person’s credit rating, healthcare access, or employment prospects, it doesn’t just fail them in that moment. It actively restricts their life chances - the very thing I had hoped technology would expand.</p> <blockquote> <div class="imagecaption alignLeft"> <img src=" https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/Tim-Clement-Jones.jpg" alt="Photo of Lord Tim Clement-Jones"> </div> <p><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong><span style="color: #34495e;">“Sixty years of the digital revolution have given me reasons for both hope and concern, often simultaneously. What has never wavered is my underlying conviction that technology must serve humanity, not the other way around”</span></strong></span></p> <p><span style="color: #34495e;"><em>Tim Clement-Jones</em></span></p> </blockquote> <p>This realisation - that technology could become a master rather than a servant, to use the framing I later chose for my book <i>Living with the algorithm: Servant or master?</i>- sent me firmly on my current trajectory. It is why, in 2016, I co-founded the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence, and the following year, I was appointed to chair the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. Our 2018 report, <i>AI in the UK: Ready, willing and able?</i>, laid down a principle I consider non-negotiable - the autonomous power to hurt, destroy, or deceive human beings should never be vested in artificial intelligence. That principle has not dated.</p> <p>Since then, the challenges have only multiplied. We face a real fight to protect children online - one that requires genuine media literacy and risk-based age ratings, not knee-jerk blanket bans.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Human creativity"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Human creativity</h2> <p>We must defend human creativity: as chair of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, representing over 130,000 members, I am currently in the thick of what I can only call the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366637299/UK-copyright-unfit-for-protecting-creative-workers-from-AI">Great AI Copyright Battle</a>. Generative AI poses a direct threat to the livelihoods of creators and the economics of the creative industries, and government consultations that risk capitulating to the tech giants are, frankly, not good enough. Transparency and opt-in licensing must be the baseline, not an aspiration.</p> <p>There is also an urgent new frontier of social injustice that receives too little attention - digital exclusion. In modern Britain, digital inclusion should be as fundamental as access to water or electricity. Every day spent offline - unable to access education, employment, or healthcare services - is a day of missed opportunities. And it is also why - particularly in the face of government plans to require digital ID to access their services - I have recently been pressing for a new criminal offence of digital identity theft, recognising that the crimes of the digital age demand a legal framework fit for the digital age.</p> <p>Throughout all of this, I have consistently challenged the narrative that basic safeguards hinder progress. The conventional wisdom - that regulation stifles innovation - needs turning on its head. Robust, binding legislation is not the enemy of technological advancement. It is its foundation. To be trusted, innovation requires accountability.</p> <p>As I look back across 60 years of the digital revolution - from my parents’ wartime work at Bletchley Park, to my absurdly heavy Compaq, to the astonishing and sometimes alarming capabilities of today’s generative AI - the fundamental question remains the one I first asked decades ago. Will technology expand our life chances, or diminish them?</p> <p>Sixty years of the digital revolution have given me reasons for both hope and concern, often simultaneously. What has never wavered is my underlying conviction that technology must serve humanity, not the other way around. Ensuring that it does is not a technical problem. It is a political one. And it is nowhere near solved.</p> <p><i>Lord Tim Clement-Jones is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson in the House of Lords for science, innovation and technology.</i></p> </section> Parliamentarian Lord Tim Clement-Jones highlights the growing impact of technology in politics across his career https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/London-Westminster-Parliament-2-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/CW60-Living-with-the-digital-revolution Fri, 10 Jul 2026 03:00:00 GMT See how CDW's Persona AI and enterprise AI platforms run on Red Hat OpenShift with Intel Gaudi 3 and Xeon 6. https://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1783702991_564.html Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT 60 webmaster@techtarget.com