The Ultimate Guide to AI Agents
A curated Kiwi edition of IndustrialDay 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.
Kiwi AI Agents News
Regional stories with direct local relevance
New Zealand firms race ahead with AI despite data gaps
Despite weak data foundations, 65 per cent of local organisations are already running AI projects, while many cannot measure success effectively.
AI boosts value of experienced developers, says Lancom CTO
AI has made prototypes cheap, but production failures remain costly, putting a premium on experienced developers who can spot hidden risks.
NZ firms need better systems before scaling AI, Reframr
Only 2% of New Zealand organisations see themselves as AI teamwork leaders, as most spending still favours technology over people.
Halter's Clank AI cuts engineering time in farm tech
Farming customers could see faster fixes as the system now handles alert triage and code changes, saving more than 215 engineering hours.
New Zealand firms split on AI as strategy gap widens
Only 15% of New Zealand businesses have an AI strategy, leaving most unable to measure returns or prepare for the next wave of tools.
Explainer: Why is everyone talking about AI and the end of the world?
Calls for tighter AI safeguards have intensified after warnings the technology could outpace human control and threaten jobs, security and markets.
Analyst Insights
Research and market analysis connected to AI Agents
Syndigo named leader in Gartner's first PIM quadrant
Oracle adds AI data platform tools for enterprise governance
Oracle expands Marketplace with partner purchasing options
Zoho Analytics adds agentic AI layer for business data
Google named Leader in IDC agentic AI platform report
Featured News
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Reviews
Expert Columns
How Local Agentic AI Is Coming to Business PCs
Nexxen's 2027 APAC Predictions: Four Shifts Set to Reshape TV and Digital Advertising
Shadow AI Is Creating an Unmanaged Identity Crisis Across APAC
It's time to embrace our robot overlords
Data Governance in the AI Era: Why One-Off Projects Fail
AI in Retail is Only as Good as its Data Foundation
AI isn't the problem, Australia's natural resources industry needs business orchestration
Building Infrastructure for an AI World in Motion
Three technology myths CIOs should stop believing
The next eCommerce interface may not be a screen
Interviews
Interviews and video coverage from the networkRecent AI Agents News
CrowdStrike uncovers China-linked AI cyber campaign
CrowdStrike has identified a China-linked cyber campaign using agentic AI to conduct simultaneous intrusions against more than 200 organisations across at least 14 countries.
Personal AI agents now contact customer service teams
Six in ten customer organisations are already fielding autonomous bots, forcing service teams to tighten oversight as AI-to-AI requests become routine.
APAC firms race ahead on AI agents, but controls lag
Most APAC firms running AI agents still lack oversight, leaving systems that can access data and act autonomously exposed to security and compliance risks.
Schneider Electric, NVIDIA & HPE launch industrial AI
Industrial operators could soon detect faults and cyber risks faster as Schneider Electric, NVIDIA and HPE move AI closer to plant data.
Microsoft adds security tools for AI agents in 365
Security teams will soon be able to limit and monitor AI agents in Microsoft 365 as the company treats them as potential insider risks.
Shopify adds app security check to CLI in AI toolkit
Developers can now spot common security flaws in their own apps before release as Shopify widens its AI Toolkit and commerce updates.
Google launches llm-d 1.0 for distributed AI inference
The open-source stack aims to cut latency and boost accelerator use for AI workloads that now arrive in bursts and compete with interactive requests.
Google adds AI & partner tools to air-gapped cloud
Defence and intelligence users can now query local text, audio and video with Gemini, without moving sensitive data outside their air-gapped perimeter.
Google says AI coding tests must track execution paths
Google says teams should judge AI coding agents on what they execute, after internal tests showed final replies can hide successful tool use.
Oracle launches Claw-powered supply chain agentic apps
The tools aim to help supply chain teams cut waste, balance scarce capacity and speed approved decisions across planning, logistics and procurement.
Google Cloud sets out three-layer AI agent plan for biotech
Biotech researchers could gain tighter control over sensitive data and slower simulations as Google Cloud separates planning, computation and oversight.
Celigo launches MCP Management to govern AI access
IT and security teams can now track and approve AI actions one tool at a time, as Celigo targets growing governance gaps across enterprise software.
Oracle launches AI security mesh with OpenAI to fix flaws
The service aims to help enterprises spot and repair vulnerabilities faster across cloud and on-premises systems, while keeping human approval in place.
Cerebras to bring fast AI inference to Oracle cloud
The addition will give Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers a faster option for AI agents, with Cerebras inference due in calendar year 2027.
Oracle adds semantic layer to Autonomous AI Lakehouse
The update aims to help firms and AI agents make better decisions from enterprise data by adding shared definitions, governance and planning tools.
Oracle unveils 25 agentic AI apps across Fusion Cloud
The update lets finance, HR and supply chain teams delegate more complex tasks to AI agents while keeping approvals and controls in place.
Alice helps train NVIDIA Nemotron models for safety
The collaborations aim to curb harmful behaviour in open AI models while preserving performance, as enterprises face growing prompt-injection risks.
Freshworks buys Robusta Dev to boost Freshservice AI
Customers should see faster outage triage, as Freshworks folds Robusta Dev's AI incident analysis into Freshservice and FireHydrant.
AtScale named OpenAI Select Partner to boost AI accuracy
Enterprise users may get more reliable AI answers as AtScale joins OpenAI's partner network to impose shared business definitions on metrics.
Google unveils Gemini 4 Carbon with cyber focus
Cyber defenders are getting first access as Google rolls out its latest AI model in stages, with wider use to follow after testing and review.
