The Ultimate Guide to AI Agents
A curated Australian edition of TechDay news, analysis, interviews, reviews, job moves, and related resources for AI Agents (Agentic AI).
What to know about AI Agents
AI agents represent a transformative area within artificial intelligence, focusing on autonomous or semi-autonomous systems capable of performing complex tasks and making decisions to enhance business operations and personal productivity.
Our recent stories highlight how AI agents are rapidly evolving across sectors—from cybersecurity and data management to customer experience and enterprise automation. Companies are integrating AI agents to improve efficiency, drive innovation, and manage security risks in increasingly sophisticated ways.
By exploring these developments, readers can gain insights into the potential benefits, emerging applications, and challenges associated with AI agent deployment. Whether you're interested in how AI agents enhance software development, automate workflows, or secure enterprise environments, this tag offers a comprehensive look at this dynamic and impactful technology.
Australian AI Agents News
Regional stories with direct local relevance
Australian firms not ready for AI at scale, study warns
Only 8% of data and AI leaders said their information was ready for scale, as weak governance and skills gaps held back adoption.
Australian firms scale AI only as trust builds, Cisco says
Fewer than half of Australian firms say their AI foundations are ready for more autonomous systems, Cisco's research found.
Urbyte tests KƎƎLO on OpenAI, Anthropic & Hugging Face
The tests suggest autonomous agents can be stopped from crossing authority limits, with seven unauthorised actions blocked and receipts kept for approved ones.
MSI expands target market with local AI-ready Prestige N16 Flip AI+
Businesses and creators could cut cloud reliance as MSI widens its laptop push beyond gaming with local AI processing and broader productivity features.
GammaDX says Australian websites lag on AI agent readiness
Only 12 of 50 sites were fully ready, raising the risk Australian organisations lose sales as AI agents take over online tasks.
Most Australian businesses hit by AI failures, study finds
The report says repeated breakdowns are now hitting operations, compliance and security, with 76% of Australian businesses affected in the past year.
Analyst Insights
Research and market analysis connected to AI Agents
Four Steps CISOs Can Take To Secure AI-driven Software Development
Smartsheet adds AI agents & controls to work platform
Boomi named Gartner Visionary for AI agent platform
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Denodo named Gartner leader for seventh year in row
Gartner flags 10 tech trends for 2027 as AI governance
Featured News
MSI expands target market with local AI-ready Prestige N16 Flip AI+
Businesses and creators could cut cloud reliance as MSI widens its laptop push beyond gaming with local AI processing and broader productivity features.
Smartsheet tackles execution drift in the age of AI agents
As AI agents speed up operations, firms are struggling to spot when day-to-day work drifts away from strategy and targets.
First Digital: Agentic AI to reshape payment infrastructure
Businesses are being urged to build safeguards now as AI agents could soon be transacting more value than humans, First Digital says.
Palo Alto Networks: Frontier AI brings more attacks, faster
Frontier AI isn't inventing new attacks, says Palo Alto Networks' Wendi Whitmore, but it is making old ones far faster and more frequent.
ClearRoute launches runkora as global expansion accelerates
Developers can now try ClearRoute's runkora for free, as the consultancy seeks to convert interest in agentic AI into enterprise contracts.
Oracle Fusion AI: Autonomy is earned, one outcome at a time
Oracle's Kaushal Kurapati says the pace of AI development is surpising even to those driving it.
Sectigo targets ANZ growth as certificate lifespans shrink
Shorter certificate lifespans are pushing Australian and New Zealand firms to automate renewals, or face higher security and outage risks.
Oracle NetSuite: Trust AI the way you'd trust a new hire
Oracle NetSuite's Brian Chess says trust is earned and built over time and through experience. That doesn't change when agentic AI is involved.
Twilio evolves from APIs to conversational trust
As AI agents proliferate, Twilio is focusing on trusted, governed communications infrastructure rather than the apps that sit on top of it.
TechnologyOne rethinks AI-enabled student services
Students could soon avoid hunting through university portals, as TechnologyOne's new AI agent handles enrolment, deferrals and course changes in one chat.
Oracle's racers: AI removes the grind, increases focus
Oracle Red Bull Racing and SailGP provide insights into AI's relentless incursion into the world of human performance.
Annexa targets new AI opportunities at SuiteWorld 2026
Annexa says mid-market businesses can lift productivity without adding staff by automating routine ERP work and unlocking new sales chances.
Scaling AI means reinventing how work gets done
The shift could reshape hiring, audits and pay as firms move from AI pilots to automated workflows that rely on new guardrails.
AI, post-quantum cryptography shift signals new era of CLM
Shorter certificate lifespans are leading Australian businesses to automate renewals as manual tracking raises costs and security risks.
Workday is a Fortune 500 startup reborn for the AI era
Its AI-first overhaul has cut layers, sped product cycles and left the company betting that startup-style speed can still serve Fortune 500 customers.
JFrog expands development lifecycle security for agentic era
Enterprises face fresh governance and compliance pressure as AI agents generate code faster than teams can secure and audit it.
Passkeys offer greater security as AI lowers phishing barrier
AI-generated phishing is making employee vigilance less reliable, pushing organisations towards passkeys and phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication.
UST: Businesses must rethink how AI returns are measured
Australian firms risk spending increasing resources on AI pilots that ultimately fail to prove gains in revenue, efficiency or customer service.
AI, data analytics driving FPT's strong APAC growth
Enterprises across APAC are moving from AI trials to deployment, boosting demand for FPT's data-led transformation services.
Celonis banking head: Banks want proof before scaling agents
Celonis argues frontier AI models are too generic for regulated banking, urging firms to weigh cost, risk and process gains before scaling deployments.
Interview: Cloudera says AI agents reshape zero trust
Enterprises must update identity controls as software agents generate more requests and need tightly time-limited access to sensitive systems.
UiPath: AI agents force rethink of junior tech roles
Routine junior tasks could soon be handed to AI agents, forcing firms to redeploy early-career staff towards strategic work, UiPath's CEO says.
Zscaler takes zero trust beyond the corporate network
Critical infrastructure operators are using cellular links to secure distributed assets as outages and spoofing raise the stakes for resilience.
Workiva: The secret compliance and reporting arms race
Driven by improved tooling, finance teams are meeting higher standards as regulators and analysts scrutinise disclosures faster.
AI transforming B2B discovery - but human trust endures
AI is changing how B2B buyers make decisions - but an expert warns that it is not a substitute for effective human comms strategies.
Databricks AI helping telcos prevent churn, predict fraud
By linking customer, network and operational data, telcos can spot churn and fraud sooner, while also speeding service and support decisions.
Filigran: Does your CISO know enough?
CISOs are under pressure to answer boardroom questions on exposure in minutes, as Filigran pushes CTEM and open-source validation tools.
Exclusive: ABBYY says AI build costs will drive buying
Enterprises could cut AI spend by up to 80% by shifting document workflows away from custom builds and into standard platforms.
Exclusive: ABBYY brings zero-shot document AI to Vantage
Enterprises can now extract data from unseen document types without templates, as ABBYY rolls out zero-shot capabilities in Vantage.
Interview: Cloudera bets on hybrid AI growth in JAPAC
Banks and large enterprises in Asia-Pacific are rethinking cloud-first AI plans as costs, sovereignty and regulation favour hybrid deployments.
Confluent: Data architecture gap impairing AI ambitions
Older systems may leave Australian firms unable to meet CDR demands, while modern data architecture is becoming crucial for real-time AI use.
Confluent: Stale, unreliable data could impair enterprise AI
Fresh data and tighter controls are becoming critical as businesses push AI into production, with weak lineage and quality seen as a major risk.
AI transforms CX to go beyond the chatbot
Consumers now expect faster, more automated support as AI agents handle complex customer journeys, though many firms still struggle to prove ROI.
Open source is powering the next generation of frontier AI
Rising inference demand and custom hardware needs are pushing AI infrastructure beyond standard cloud setups, boosting open source tools.
Governance controls are crucial for AI adoption and modernisation
Trusted partners and tighter guardrails are becoming essential as AI agents expand the attack surface and put data sovereignty on the line.
Exclusive: Cloudera builds Hadoop-free future platform
Existing customers get six years of support as Cloudera shifts new AI and analytics workloads to a Hadoop-free platform due in November.
Mimecast CEO: Agentic AI threat novel but not entirely new
Hidden AI risks are already widespread in workplaces, with Mimecast saying users are driving shadow tools and most exposure still starts with people.
Interactive customers win, as AI expands into service operations
AI is cutting manual triage in Interactive's cloud operations, where 40,000 device alerts a year now generate tickets and suggested fixes automatically.
Big AI moves at Lendi Group, brokers and customers benefit
More deals and faster lender integrations are expected as Lendi shifts its mortgage platform towards agentic AI for 1,300 brokers.
Rimini Street offers AI magic without the forced ERP migration
CIOs can keep existing ERP systems and still adopt agentic AI, as Rimini Street pitches a cheaper path away from vendor-led migrations.
Customers at the centre of Adobe's new AI evangelist role
Adobe is using the post to help customers navigate AI adoption while feeding regional priorities back into its global product strategy.
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Apple's Unified Memory powers Kiraa AI's rapid automation
Australian firms can speed month-end processing from days to an hour by running Kiraa AI on Macs instead of costly cloud servers.
Jamf launches AI Governance to enhance visibility, security
IT teams can now track AI models on Apple fleets to curb data leaks and token spend as businesses wrestle with shadow AI.
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AI models expose new attack surfaces through misconfiguration
Misconfigured models are giving attackers a fresh route into cloud systems, raising the risk of data theft and service compromise.
Zendesk's outcome-based pricing balances AI with human touch
Businesses will pay only for closed support cases under Zendesk's new model, as the software group ties AI automation to human fallback.
AI will fade, says Dell Technologies' ephemeral Chief AI Officer
Dell says agentic AI should shift routine tasks below the machine line, freeing staff for expert work while making the role temporary.
Schrodinger's ERP both dead and alive, says Rimini Street
Businesses can avoid costly ERP rip-and-replace projects by layering AI and automation onto existing systems, Rimini Street says.
ClickHouse customer base soars on back of AI demand
AI agents are driving a sharp rise in demand for the real-time data platform, which added 1000 customers early in 2026 to top 4000.
Cloudflare: Non-human traffic may reshape publishing models
Publishers may be pushed towards licensing deals and micro-payments as AI crawlers consume content without sending traffic back.
Reviews
Expert Columns
Enterprises Do Not Have a Problem with Access to Technology, but with Choice
We ran an all-employee AI Month and now everyone in our company is ready to build
Securing the AI Systems of Tomorrow
2027 Predictions: The race to AI readiness exposes true cost of effective enterprise data management
Predictions 2027: Why the future of work is 'AI and human' adjacent
AI agents will multiply your inference bill. Is your enterprise ready?
Security Learnings from the Open Source Front Line
Most organisations are only solving half of the certificate problem
How Local Agentic AI Is Coming to Business PCs
Nexxen's 2027 APAC Predictions: Four Shifts Set to Reshape TV and Digital Advertising
Interviews
Interviews and video coverage from the network
MSI expands target market with local AI-ready Prestige N16 Flip AI+
Smartsheet tackles execution drift in the age of AI agents
First Digital: Agentic AI to reshape payment infrastructure
Palo Alto Networks: Frontier AI brings more attacks, faster
ClearRoute launches runkora as global expansion accelerates
Recent AI Agents News
Adobe unveils AI agents across Firefly & Creative Cloud at Max
Creative teams will get agent-based tools and new workflows as Adobe rolls out updates across Firefly, Creative Cloud and GenStudio.
Adobe expands AI agents across Firefly & Creative Cloud
The updates broaden Adobe's AI tools for creators and marketers, with new assistants, partner models and Microsoft integrations now rolling out across its software.
Adobe expands Firefly with AI tools & creative agent
Users can now keep image, video and design work in one place as Adobe rolls out more AI tools and broader agent access in Firefly.
Ancep raises USD $8.5 million to boost broker revenue
The London start-up says its software can help brokers profitably handle lower-value risks that are often turned away, after raising USD $8.5 million.
LG wins CES innovation awards for OLED T6 & appliances
The honours reinforce LG's hold on CES, with its latest transparent OLED TV taking the top prize for the fifth year running.
ClickHouse expands with Xata deal into Postgres & AI
The deal aims to cut the operational sprawl facing companies as AI agents push analytics, transactions, monitoring and security onto one platform.
Red Hat launches OpenShift 5 with AI troubleshooting
Customers can now use natural language prompts to diagnose issues and assess upgrade risks on the updated hybrid cloud platform.
C.H. Robinson expands AI into ocean, air & customs
Customers are getting quotes in minutes as the freight broker's new AI agents cut ocean, air and customs processing times and reduce manual work.
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Aera unveils six tools to automate enterprise decisions
Enterprises can now automate and govern more operational choices, as the software adds tools for policy checks, tracking and interoperability with other AI systems.
Kong launches Token Vault to secure AI agent access
It aims to curb credential sprawl and reduce the risk of compromised AI agents using persistent secrets to move across enterprise systems.
Forrester warns of shadow AI governance gap in Asia Pacific
One in three large Asia Pacific enterprises will struggle to govern shadow AI agents as staff-built tools outpace internal controls, Forrester says.
Dell expands AI factory with NVIDIA for agentic AI
More than 6,500 customers have adopted Dell's AI Factory with NVIDIA as it adds deskside systems, servers and managed services for agentic AI.
Sinch joins SpaceXSI network to aid Grok Build apps
Developers using Grok Build can now add customer communications tools earlier, as Sinch joins SpaceX Super Intelligence's partner network.
Confluent unveils Streamhouse & Lightning Tables for AI
The new tools aim to give AI systems a governed, real-time view of business data without moving it into separate databases.
Google Cloud launches new security tools for AI agents
The rollout aims to help companies patch AI-driven systems faster, as Google adds identity, perimeter and detection controls across its cloud security stack.
A1 launches AI governance service for mid-market firms
Growing regulatory scrutiny is pushing mid-market firms in Australia and New Zealand to prove who owns AI tools, what they access and how they are controlled.
Perplexity launches Teammates AI agents for Max users
Access to Perplexity's new Teammates feature is limited to individual Max subscribers, leaving Pro and enterprise users waiting for a broader rollout.
Google Cloud unveils self-learning context tools for AI
The preview tools aim to cut manual upkeep and make AI agents more accurate as firms struggle to keep business context current.
KloudStax wins Google Cloud services Premier partner status
Rapid revenue growth and a bigger AI pipeline have helped KloudStax secure elite Google Cloud status, widening customer access to technical support.
Uptiq launches GovernAI for financial institutions
The tool is meant to ease board and regulator concerns by giving lenders audit trails, approvals and user controls for AI agents.
Job Moves
Kablamo names Nat Abood head of product & AI strategy
Kapālins names Jai A Singla CTO as it tightens AI controls
Ledger appoints Oded Blatman as Chief Information Officer
Kablamo appoints Troy Bebee to lead Google Cloud push
CommBank appoints first Chief AI Scientist in Australia
Cloudwerx appoints Harsh Mishra to lead SA market expansion
Prophet strengthens AI team with key engineering hires
Prophet names Rachel Scott as Head of Marketing Science
VentureCrowd appoints Jesse Arundell to lead agentic AI drive
