FutureCIO

VAST Data has introduced a new confidential AI capability that lets enterprises run proprietary and open AI models against sensitive data without exposing either the data or the models to infrastructure operators.

The latest IDC InfoBrief commissioned by Expereo found that 51% of APAC organisations prioritising digital sovereignty want to retain control over sensitive and strategic data. Eric Wong Eric Wong, president, Asia Pacific at Expereo, said: “There is no single path to digital sovereignty across Asia Pacific.

The global travel and tourism sector is projected to contribute nearly US$12 trillion to global GDP in 2026, supporting 376 million jobs—roughly one in every nine jobs worldwide. Yet beneath this buoyant statistic lies a troubling paradox for the travel trade sector. The platforms that connect travellers with airlines, hotels, and experiences remain, by their own CTO’s admission, fundamentally limited in what they understand about the journeys they facilitate.

Lenovo is expanding its Lenovo & Motorola Qira personal AI experience across more devices, applications and markets to give users a more connected AI experience across their everyday devices. Dan Dery “Personal AI should not be another app waiting for a prompt,” said Dan Dery, vice president of AI Ecosystem, Lenovo.“It should understand what matters to you, move with you across devices and help orchestrate next steps across the agents, applications and services you choose.

The Agoda AI Developer Report 2026 found that software developers across Southeast Asia are open to granting AI agents more autonomy for lower-risk, reversible work, but demand for human oversight is rising. The majority (79%) report requiring human approval for production deployment. Idan Zalzberg Idan Zalzberg, chief technology officer at Agoda, said, “Across industries, developers are seeing stronger productivity gains and are beginning to use agents across more of the development lifecycle.

Alibaba Cloud unveiled its latest global infrastructure expansion plan, which includes expanding its data centre footprint in Malaysia and Hong Kong. Beyond APAC, the company also announced the establishment of its first cloud regions in Türkiye, Finland, and the Netherlands, and data centre footprint expansion in Germany, the United Arab Emirates, and France over the next 12 months.

Cisco has expanded its partnership with NVIDIA to bring Splunk AI to on-premises customers.

Enterprises are increasingly moving AI beyond experimentation, but turning deployments into measurable business value remains a challenge. According to Gartner, only 23% of CxOs report confidence in their organisation’s genAI outputs. With a large gap between deploying AI and realising value at scale, Huawei has outlined a seven-step approach for AI adoption.

Salesforce and Singlife have expanded their partnership with a General Insurance (GI) Email Agent designed to enhance email customer support, alongside AI agent Buddy, unveiled last year. GI Email Agent claims to assess each enquiry in real time, identifying the nature and urgency of the request so that it can be directed to the right support. It can also respond immediately, while routing more complex or sensitive cases to human agents for personalised support.

Businesses struggling to generate actual returns on investments (ROI) from their artificial intelligence (AI) deployments are making some common mistakes and overlooking the need to establish new ways to measure returns. In particular, traditional metrics, such as cost savings, productivity improvements, and revenue growth, still are important, but are no longer adequate on their own.