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EDITOR ’ S NOTE
Greetings to the readers of Intelligent CIO Middle East . In this month ’ s edition , forecasts , predictions , outlooks dominate many of our sections . A key point resonating across these collections is the rise and fall of success with Generative AI by enterprises , typically following the technology hype cycles , as well as the possibilities of Generative AI becoming a close ally for CISOs , as they struggle with resounding skill shortages .
Despite billions of dollars invested into AI models in 2024 , new data from Cisco ’ s AI Readiness Index shows that AI readiness has declined as now only 13 % of companies are ready to leverage AI-powered technologies to their full potential , reveals David Meads at Cisco .
According to BeyondTrust ’ s Morey Haber , expect to see businesses return to more proven narrow-AI use cases to restore predictability to the ROI of AI projects . Automation and the upskilling of business functions are likely to be among the most common implementations . The fear of Generative AI catalysing a volume explosion in targeted , bespoke attacks is unfounded .
And Chuck Herrin at F5 issues words of caution . The AI race is not just about adoption speed . It is creating a dangerous feedback loop where the pressure to deploy AI faster makes us more dependent on it to manage the complexity we are creating . In many ways , we are seeing a dangerous parallel to the rushed cloud adoption of the early 2010s , but with higher stakes .
Turn these pages to read more about the adoption of digital and business transformation across leading regional enterprises .
In this month ’ s Editor ’ s Question , as Generative AI use cases move from dabbling proof of concepts towards meaningful exercises with focussed business outcomes , what are the compute and storage hybrid cloud platforms that are available to scale these use cases ? Executives from Cloudera , Pure Storage , NetApp , ServiceNow , provide insights .
Wishing you the best of transformative business success in the month ahead .
As 2025 dawns , the CISO must question the status quo and ask themselves how things need to change in the coming year . Is AI a risk that requires a new security strategy ? Could it also be the answer to facing down a threat landscape that is scaling up in terms of both volume and stealth capabilities , are questions raised by Richard Seiersen at Qualys .
Arun Shankar Managing Editor arun @ lynchpinmedia . com
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