Executives urge stronger AI foundations across sectors

On AI Appreciation Day, technology executives set out contrasting visions for how artificial intelligence should reshape healthcare, cybersecurity and data infrastructure. Leaders from Azalea Health, Index Engines and CTERA highlighted the practical conditions they believe are necessary for AI to deliver lasting value.

The comments reflect growing pressure on organisations to move beyond experimentation and align AI projects with existing workflows, security models and data management strategies. They also point to a widening gap between those that have invested in the underlying infrastructure and those still treating AI as a bolt-on tool.

Baha Zeidan, Chief Executive Officer of Azalea Health, framed AI's role in healthcare as a matter of workload and trust rather than novelty. He drew a direct link between fragmented clinical systems and time lost at the bedside, arguing that AI must fit into everyday practice rather than sit on the periphery.

"AI is at its best when it does more than store information - it should act on it. Every minute a provider spends chasing down data or piecing together fragmented systems is a minute taken away from a patient. The goal isn't to build a smarter filing cabinet. It's to build software that works alongside providers: surfacing the right information at the right moment, automating the tasks that pull them away from care, and lifting administrative work off their plate before it becomes a problem. As AI continues to evolve, its success won't be defined by how much data it holds. It will be defined by how much work it takes off a provider's hands, whether it saves time, fits naturally into how practices already work, and earns the trust of the people using it every day. On AI Appreciation Day, it's worth recognizing technology that does the work, not just stores it. AI should reduce friction, support busy healthcare teams, and help practices focus less on process and more on delivering great care. That's where lasting innovation begins," said Baha Zeidan, Chief Executive Officer of Azalea Health.

Cybersecurity specialists are raising similar concerns as they track how threat actors are using AI to change attack patterns. Ransomware, data exfiltration and lateral movement within networks are increasingly being automated, placing greater strain on backup and recovery strategies.

Jim McGann, Chief Marketing Officer of Index Engines, said AI now shapes both offence and defence in cybersecurity. He argued that organisations must treat protected data stores as a strategic asset and test them continuously rather than rely on periodic checks.

"Adversaries are using AI to accelerate attacks across the entire cyber lifecycle. Traditional backup and recovery strategies are not enough. Fighting AI-accelerated attacks takes AI-powered defense, and that is what cyber resilience now demands: using AI to continuously validate backup and production data to pinpoint the last known clean copy before attackers can strike again. Security leaders need immutable protected data and automated recovery that restores trusted operations with confidence, and they need to build that resilience into every workflow from the start," said Jim McGann, Chief Marketing Officer of Index Engines.

The question of data foundations is also prominent in enterprise IT, where leaders are wrestling with large volumes of unstructured information. Files, media assets and collaborative documents often sit across multiple storage locations and regions under inconsistent governance.

Oded Nagel, Chief Executive Officer of CTERA, said the current AI wave is exposing long-standing structural weaknesses in how enterprises handle file data. He linked AI readiness directly to the quality and accessibility of that information rather than to any particular model.

"AI Appreciation Day reminds us that we are living through one of the most notable technological shifts in a generation. But appreciation without action is just observation. For enterprise organizations, the real opportunity in AI is not just automation. It is unlocking the value buried inside decades of unstructured file data: documents, records, collaborative files, engineering drawings, and medical images. This is where institutional knowledge lives, and until now, it has largely been invisible to AI systems. The businesses that will win in this AI era are not necessarily the ones with the best models. They are the ones that have the strongest data foundations. Clean, accessible, secure, and governed file data is what makes AI work at scale. At CTERA, we have spent years building the infrastructure layer that enterprise AI now depends on: global file services, edge-to-cloud architecture, and data security baked in from the start. That was not accidental. Through experience, we came to understand that data infrastructure would become a major asset. What excites me most is not where AI is today. It is what becomes possible when every organization can finally activate the file data it has always had but never fully used. AI Appreciation Day should prompt every business leader to ask one honest question: Is your data infrastructure ready to support your AI ambitions? If not, start preparing it now. The window to take action is now. Make the investment in your data foundation today," said Oded Nagel, Chief Executive Officer of CTERA.