Exclusive Insight: The Essential Role of Automation and AI in Strengthening Australia’s Resilience
Australian businesses are currently facing significant challenges in their digital operations, as repeated IT outages and increasing cybersecurity pressures undermine both consumer trust and productivity. Recent industry data reveals a concerning trend: over 73 million work hours have been lost to outages in the past year, while consumer trust has plummeted by up to 29% across major sectors. In response, financial regulators have introduced a comprehensive new mandate, APRA’s CPS 230, which targets systemic risk within the sector and requires institutions to revamp their operational risk regimes by July 2025. The repercussions of these pressures, along with the lessons learned about resilience, are extending beyond the finance sector, influencing digital trust strategies in retail, telecommunications, and airlines.
In this context, emerging technologies such as automation and Agentic AI are transitioning from mere aspirations in boardrooms to essential operational tools. Ross Martin, Regional Enterprise Director for APAC, highlighted the growing cost pressures across the region, stating that every company is being compelled to do more with less. He emphasised that headcount remains a significant drain on expenditure, and automation should not be viewed as a means to replace people but rather as a way to augment teams. This allows talent to concentrate on issues that genuinely affect the bottom line and enhance customer experience. Notably, 65% of Australian respondents identify automation as a key lever for improving operational effectiveness, while 46% see Agentic AI as vital for the future of IT operations.
The push towards automation in the region is driven by both necessity and strategy, particularly in light of significant skill shortages. Martin pointed out that enterprises are struggling to hire quickly enough to keep pace with business demands, and there are not enough specialists available to manually build and maintain processes at scale. Consequently, automation and AI have become indispensable for scaling operations to meet both executive and customer expectations. However, as the appetite for automation increases, so do concerns regarding data security, with 33% of local IT leaders citing it as their most critical challenge.
David Ridge, Head of Solutions Consulting APJ at PagerDuty, explained that as organisations expand their digital services, their threat surface area also increases, making the data they protect more vulnerable. He stressed the importance of not innovating so rapidly that security is compromised. Ridge advocated for operationalising security as a real-time discipline, aligning it with the swift incident response cycles that digital-native companies now require. He noted that security teams are now under the same pressures as operations teams, making real-time monitoring and response essential best practices. PagerDuty plays a crucial role in this framework by providing security teams with the insights and automation necessary to detect and respond to live threats, while also embedding context and enrichment into incident data to prevent wasted time on incomplete information.
Categories: Digital Operations, Automation and AI, Cybersecurity Challenges
Tags: Digital Operations, Consumer Trust, IT Outages, Cybersecurity Pressures, Automation, Agentic AI, Operational Effectiveness, Skill Shortages, Data Security, Real-Time Monitoring