The ITPro Podcast

One of the most commonly-touted benefits of AI is its ability to cut down toil and give workers more time to focus on valuable tasks.Few professionals could arguably benefit from this more than teachers, who spend many of their evenings and weekend hours completing paperwork and carrying out marking.How is AI already being used to free up time for teachers, and what can we learn from exemplar organizations leading the way on this path?In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with AWS, Jane and Rory are joined by Scott Hayden, head of teaching, learning and digital at Basingstoke College of Technology, to explore how the college has deployed AI to support its teaching staff.Read more:Basingstoke College of TechnologyPerform PartnersHelping BCoT Secure $25K Credits to Accelerate AI Growth: How OGVA Enables Innovation in Further Education

Fraud has evolved leaps and bounds in the past few years, with new technology and more digitally-native businesses than ever providing the ideal attack surface for fraudsters. As attackers look to lure in business professionals with new tech such as deepfakes and AI scams, enterprise cybersecurity teams and cybersecurity vendors are faced with the task of combatting cyber fraud more effectively.How can we combat this new frontier of cyber fraud?In this episode, Jane is joined by Paul Weathersby, chief product officer, Identity, Fraud & Financial Crime Compliance at Experian, to explore the increasing sophistication of cyber crime and fraud campaigns.

Women are still greatly underrepresented in STEM. The latest figures from the Women Tech Network show women only make up around 26-27% of the STEM workforce and the organization estimates that at the current rate of change, it will be nearly 123 years before the economic gender gap is closed.It’s International Women’s Day 2026 – and the rate of women hired in tech continues to lag far behind that of men. As hiring teams turn to AI tools to automatically field candidates, we’re at something of a crossroads – do we fix the bias inherent in hiring? Or simply replicate it at scale with similarly biased AI tools?In this episode, Jane are Rory are joined by Clare Hickie, EMEA CTO at Workday, to discuss how businesses can engage in bias-free talent acquisition in the age of AI.

February is the shortest month, but you wouldn’t know it from the sheer amount of news that’s broken in just the past 26 days.Amid growing fears of AI stealing jobs, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has claimed that firms are simply using the technology as an excuse for mass layoffs. Earlier this month, a series of Anthropic releases drove stocks down at a range of companies – all tied to fears that the SaaS model might be on its way out.Also this month, Pure Storage has rebranded as Everpure – what’s behind this decision and what does it say about the company’s strategy going forward?In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore some of February’s biggest stories.Read more:Sam Altman just said what everyone is thinking about AI layoffsWhy Anthropic sent software stocks into freefallAnthropic says Claude Code can help streamline 'cost-prohibitive' COBOL modernization, but IBM says it's not that simpleWhat might cause the 'AI bubble' to burst – and what impact would that have on the business world?Pure Storage snaps up 1touch in data management pivot

Digital sovereignty has quietly become one of the most urgent requirements in the tech sector. Once a matter for policy debate, this is now a critical business issue and as much a matter of resilience as one of compliance.Indeed while we’ve spoken about the need for digital sovereignty before, recent geopolitical developments have cast the debate in far starker light. With European governments and businesses leaning heavily into digital sovereignty, it’s clear there’s an emerging race to secure critical workloads.Just how important will digital sovereignty be in 2026?In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss all things digital sovereignty – how it’s being realized, the scale of the transformation, and how we could see things play out.Read more:Sovereign infrastructure spend to triple in Europe as fifth of workloads stay localWhat is a sovereign cloud?Sovereign cloud services are now the “bare minimum” expected by customers, and hyperscalers are scrambling to meet demandWhat the new AWS European Sovereign Cloud means for enterprisesWhat the new Microsoft Sovereign Cloud push means for European customersCIOs wrestle with Europe's new digital sovereignty approachCan the UK achieve AI sovereignty?

Risk management is a constant point of concern in the modern enterprise, with cybersecurity threats, compliance pressures, and financial leaps of faith all piling pressure on the teams who are forced to manage them. But risk management can’t always be about bailing out the sinking ship. Sooner or later, businesses need to integrate their risk management systems and connect teams together via a centralized framework.What are the benefits of overhauling risk management in this manner? And how can it be achieved?In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Qualys, Rory is joined by Ivan Milenkovic, VP Risk Technology EMEA at Qualys, to explore how businesses can reduce the burden on C-suite executives and improve their overall resilience by restructuring their approach to risk management.Read more:Risk Operations Center (ROC) | Qualys

This episode was first published on 18 July 2025.Cyber attacks can feel a layer detached from the real world. Yes, businesses frequently see IP stolen, get frozen out of systems, or have data wiped by malicious actors. But if you haven’t got your finger on the pulse, cyber attacks can also fail to register in your day to day.But there are instances where cyber attacks come crashing into the lives of everyday people, and become impossible to ignore: when attackers go after critical infrastructure and operational technology. Breaches and malware attacks at power and water plants, against core supply chain organizations, or against transport networks can all cause catastrophic damage, enormous financial losses – and even lead to deaths.In this episode, Rory speaks with Magpie Graham, technical director of intel and services at Dragos, to discuss attacks on operational technology, critical infrastructure, and the future of large-scale cyber attacks.Read more:What is operational technology – and why is it at risk?Manufacturing firms are struggling to handle rising OT security threatsWhen everything connects, everything’s at riskFormer NCSC head says the Jaguar Land Rover attack was the 'single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the UK' as impact laid bareCISA shares lessons learned from Polish power grid hack – and how to prevent disaster striking again

Identity controls in the enterprise have only become more complicated over the last few years.Initially, the focus was on IoT devices, which were exploding in the enterprise environment. But recent years have brought an onslaught of AI tools and AI agents, all of which come with security and governance complications.How can business leaders get a grip on the adoption of AI agents, particularly as these tools begin to communicate with one another and with third-party enterprise tools?In this episode, Rory speaks to Shiven Ramji, president, Auth0 at Okta, to discuss the future of identity, security and governance in the face of AI agents.

January is supposed to be a month full of new starts and potential, in which we try to embrace resolutions or set out our plans for the year ahead.But in the tech sector, it’s become something of an ominous month – the start of layoff season. January 2026 has been no different, with Amazon announcing 16,000 jobs cut in a plan that could see up to 30,000 cut by the end of May according to Reuters.Earlier in the month, Dell made waves at CES 2026 with the news that it’s reviving the XPS laptop line, just one year on from its announcement that the brand would be deprecated. What can we make of the job cuts and of Dell's reversal?In this episode, Rory welcomes back Ross Kelly, ITPro's news and analysis editor, to explore some of January's biggest stories.Read more:Amazon is cutting 14,000 roles in a bid to ‘operate like the world's largest startup’‘Lean into it’: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy thinks enterprises need to embrace AI to avoid being left behind – even if that means fewer jobs in the futureFresh Microsoft layoffs hit software engineering roles, documents showReturn of the XPS: Dell resurrects iconic brand at CES after customer demandDell kills off XPS and other brands for PC simplicity

Every business wants its payments to process smoothly. Simply put, if you’re introducing friction into your payment processes, you’re making it harder to drive revenue and dissuading users from becoming return customers.One sector that knows this better than most is iGaming, which has to meet the demands of users around the world including mobile payments, virtual wallets, and cross-border social gaming payouts.Delivering all this in near real-time, with adequate security and reliable infrastructure, is no small feat. How are these payment systems possible?In this special edition of the ITPro Podcast, in association with Paysafe, Rory is joined by Bob Legters, chief product officer at Paysafe, to discuss the best practices for building a payments strategy – and how this can be applied to iGaming.

One of the major challenges of today’s environments is the rising tide of bots, with generative AI driving a new era of the technology.Bots have been a part of the internet since at least the 1990s but recent technological advancements have swollen their number exponentially. Some of these net dwellers are benign, others are malicious, and some sit somewhere in between. But no matter what category they fall into, they can all cause problems for businesses. How much of an issue is this for businesses and what can they do to mitigate it? In this special discussion, in association with Fastly, Jane speaks to Marshall Irwin, chief information security officer (CISO) at Fastly, to discover more about how organizations can protect themselves from the risks of bots.

The environmental impact of AI is a growing area of study and one that businesses must begin to seriously consider.When you power a data center with coal, it’s obvious that it’s having a detrimental impact on the environment. But is a ‘green’ data center really green? And to what extent might the benefits of AI outweigh potential environmental negatives?In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss the shifting sustainability targets of the world’s public cloud giants, as caused by AI, and what they’re doing to get back on track.Read more:Microsoft Environmental Sustainability Report 2025Amazon 2024 Sustainability ReportGoogle 2025 Environmental ReportGoogle emissions have surged 51% in five years – but it’s making solid progress in data center efficiencyData center carbon emissions are set to skyrocket by 2030, with hyperscalers producing 2.5 billion tons of carbonSmall businesses are ‘flying blind’ on carbon emissions and struggling to meet sustainability goals – and the blame lies with big tech vendorsBig tech’s solution for AI-related carbon emissions could be more AIMicrosoft wants to drastically cut carbon emissions, so it’s building data centers with woodCan small modular reactors meet data center power demand?Google just confirmed the location of its first small modular reactorHyperscalers go nuclearGas-powered data centers: what's behind the boom?Could all data centers go solar?TPUs: Google's home advantageWhat is a tensor processing unit (TPU)?AI’s thirsty secret

The tech sector started this year with a bang at CES 2026, the annual event that brings together over 140,000 attendees to share the latest innovations in consumer and business technology.Unsurprisingly, at this year’s event AI was a primary focus – with more details on Nvidia and AMD’s latest hardware, alongside AI PC innovations by brands like Lenovo.Alongside these headlines, however, we also saw a return to form by companies such as Dell, with the resurrection of the XPS laptop range.What did we learn from CES about what to expect in business hardware over the coming year?In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Mike Moore, deputy editor at TechRadar Pro, to discuss the biggest moments from CES 2026.

We’re just over a week into 2026 but already, enterprise cybersecurity teams will be hard at work repelling attacks – and business leaders will be worrying about the year ahead.On the one hand, we’re told that AI tools are beginning to empower security teams to go further and faster. On the other, the use of AI by hackers to launch attacks also appears to be on the rise.All of this is happening against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions and continual attacks by state-sponsored hacking groups against businesses. How will all this come together in 2026 and beyond?In this episode, Jane and Rory are joined by Jamie Collier, lead advisor in Europe at Google Threat Intelligence Group, to explore the risks – both novel and ordinary – enterprises face in 2026.Read more:NCSC issues urgent warning over growing AI prompt injection risks – here’s what you need to knowCyber experts have been warning about AI-powered DDoS attacks – now they’re becoming a realitySalt Typhoon attack on US congressional email system ‘exposes how vulnerable core communications systems remain to nation-state actors’OpenAI says prompt injection attacks are a serious threat for AI browsers – and it’s a problem that’s ‘unlikely to ever be fully solved'OpenAI turns to red teamers to prevent malicious ChatGPT use as company warns future models could pose 'high' security riskA flaw in Google’s new Gemini CLI tool could’ve allowed hackers to exfiltrate dataGoogle says you shouldn't worry about AI malware – but that won’t last long as hackers refine techniquesNorth Korean IT workers: The growing threatNorth Korean hackers continue targeting developers in open source malware campaign - and experts say as many as 36,000 victims have been snared so farCRINK attacks: which nation state hackers will be the biggest threat in 2026?

As we ring in the new year, we’re returning to the ITPro tradition of looking ahead and discussing the key trends that will shape the tech sector in 2026.While there will undoubtedly be surprises ahead, both exciting and concerning, it’s also possible to look at some of the standout moments from 2025 to help us understand where we’re headed.So what can we expect IT decision makers to come up against in 2026?For this new year’s edition of the podcast, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s News and Analysis Editor, to discuss the key trends that will shape 2026.FootnotesAI adoption is finally driving ROI for B2B teams in the UK and EUAI is finally delivering bang for its buck, according to MicrosoftUK firms are pouring money into AI, but they won’t see a return on investment unless they address these key issuesFormer NCSC head says the Jaguar Land Rover attack was the 'single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the UK' as impact laid bareIf you're not taking insider threats seriously, then the CrowdStrike incident should be a big wake up callNorth Korean IT workers: The growing threatUS Department of Energy’s supercomputer shopping spree continues with Solstice and EquinoxInside Isambard-AI: The UK’s most powerful supercomputerNvidia just announced new supercomputers and an open AI model family for science at SC 2025

2025 has almost come to a close and the new year is right around the corner.At this time of year, it’s usual to reflect on the year and consider some of the biggest, most impactful things that have happened. But here at ITPro, we like to take a different approach: what didn’t happen?The tech industry can’t help but make bold promises and some just don’t pan out. What are some of the biggest targets, trends, and predictions that just haven’t come to fruition in 2025?In this episode, Jane and Rory are once again joined by Ross Kelly, news and analysis editor at ITPro, to discuss the biggest misses of the year.Read more:Is enterprise agentic AI adoption matching the hype?‘Agent washing’ is here: Most agentic AI tools are just ‘repackaged’ RPA solutions and chatbots – and Gartner says 40% of projects will be ditched within two yearsAgentic AI carries huge implications for security teams - here's what leaders should know'It's slop': OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy pours cold water on agentic AI hype – so your jobs are safe, at least for nowIBM is targeting 'quantum advantage' in 12 months – and says useful quantum computing is just a few years awaySAS thinks quantum AI has huge enterprise potential – here's whySAS rejects generative AI hype in favor of data fundamentals at Innovate 2025Post-quantum cryptography is now top of mind for cybersecurity leadersWhy does Nvidia have a no-chip quantum strategy?Meta executive denies hyping up Llama 4 benchmark scores – but what can users expect from the new models?

Cybersecurity teams are facing a double edged sword of challenges and opportunities. On the one hand, AI tools offer a great deal of autonomous working and the promise of automating some of the more laborious tasks that a cybersecurity team has to undertake.On the other hand, attackers are also using AI to launch large scale attacks such as sophisticated phishing campaigns and identity theft. To fight this threat, cybersecurity teams will need to unify data like never before and take advantage of as many new technologies and processes as they can.How can they go about this? And what does a unified cybersecurity strategy really look like in 2026?In this episode, Rory is joined by Mandy Andress, chief information security officer at Elastic, to explore how businesses can evolve their threat detection and security posture, as well as how AI is lowering the barrier to entry for attackers.Read more:In the age of AI threats, the future of security is unifiedAI-generated code is now the cause of one-in-five breaches – but developers and security leaders alike are convinced the technology will come good eventuallyAI-generated code risks: What CISOs need to knowAgentic AI carries huge implications for security teams - here's what leaders should knowThe NCSC touts honeypots and ‘cyber deception’ tactics as the key to combating hackers — but they could ‘lead to a false sense of security’

In the race to train and deploy generative AI models, companies have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into GPUs, chips that have become essential for the parallel processing needs of large language models.Nvidia alone has forecast $500 billion in sales across 2025 and 2026, driven largely by Jensen Huang, founder and CEO at Nvidia, recently stated that “inference has become the most compute-intensive phase of AI — demanding real-time reasoning at planetary scale”. Google is meeting these demands in its own way. Unlike other firms reliant on chips by Nvidia, AMD, and others, Google has long used its in-house ‘tensor processing units’ (TPUs) for AI training and inference.What are the benefits and drawbacks of Google’s reliance on TPUs? And how do its chips stack up against the competition?In this episode, Jane and Rory discuss TPUs – Google’s specialized processors for AI and ML – and how they could help the hyperscaler outcompete its rivals.Read more:

HPE Discover Barcelona 2025 was in full swing this past week, with thousands of attendees descending on the Fira Barcelona to hear the latest news on the networking, servers, storage, supercomputing – and, of course, AI.It’s a pivotal time for the firm, as it consolidates its hardware partnerships and heralds a recent acquisition, while laying out its strategy to help customers not only meet demand, but expand their networks and adopt new technologies.What are some of the biggest things HPE announced – and what does the firm have lined up for 2026 and beyond?In this episode, Rory interviews Jane live on the ground to unpack all things HPE.

As a business leader, you’d like to believe that your staff are entirely trustworthy. Effective enterprises run on workforce confidence – but in some cases, that trust can be misplaced.In November, CrowdStrike admitted one of its own employees had provided screenshots of internal systems to hackers in exchange for a sizable payout. Industry experts have told ITPro the incident should act as a wake up call to the all-too-serious risk of insider threats.Earlier in the month, websites all over the world went offline after a major outage at the content delivery network service provider Cloudflare. What was the cause of the incident: had Cloudflare fallen victim to the kind of DDoS attack it’s famous for preventing?In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore some of November’s biggest stories.FootnotesIf you're not taking insider threats seriously, then the CrowdStrike incident should be a big wake up callNearly 700,000 customers impacted after insider attack at US fintech firmAI means cyber teams are rethinking their approach to insider threats‘Insiders don’t need to break in’: A developer crippled company networks with malicious code and a ‘kill switch’ after being sacked – and experts warn it shows the huge danger of insider threatsEverything you need to know about CloudflareThe Cloudflare outage explained: What happened, who was impacted, and what was the root cause?Cloudflare says AI companies have been “scraping content without limits” – now it’s letting website owners block crawlers and force them to paySecurity experts issue warning over the rise of 'gray bot' AI web scrapersCloudflare is fighting back against AI web scrapersNearly half of all digital initiatives still fail – here’s how you can learn from the ‘digital vanguard’ and deliver successSubscribe to the IT Pro newsletterJoin us on LinkedIn