Latest news with #StateofGenerativeAI
Broadcast Pro
2 days ago
- Business
- Broadcast Pro
Palo Alto Networks reports nearly 900% surge in generative AI usage
This report dives into the world of AI adoption to explore its benefits, challenges, and how to balance AI innovation with security to safely transform how businesses operate for years to come. In a new 'State of Generative AI' report, Palo Alto Networks has revealed a dramatic rise in the adoption and use of generative AI (GenAI) technologies across its customer base, signaling a pivotal shift in how businesses are integrating AI into their operations. Based on analysis of tens of thousands of global tenants, the company identified critical trends shaping the current AI landscape—ranging from massive usage growth to escalating security concerns. According to the report, GenAI traffic surged by over 890% throughout 2024. This extraordinary spike reflects the rapid maturation of AI models and their growing value in enterprise automation and productivity. What was once considered an experimental tool is now becoming a fundamental utility across industries. However, this widespread adoption has brought with it significant cybersecurity challenges. The average number of GenAI-related data loss prevention (DLP) incidents more than doubled, increasing by 2.5 times in early 2025. These incidents now account for 14% of all data security breaches. The report warns that careless or unauthorized use of GenAI applications can lead to leaks of intellectual property, regulatory violations, and exposure of sensitive data. The findings also reveal that organisations are using an average of 66 GenAI applications, with around 10% of those categorized as high risk. This proliferation is largely driven by a lack of well-defined AI usage policies, an urgency to adopt AI for competitive advantage, and insufficient security protocols in place—factors that leave companies vulnerable to exploitation. Palo Alto Networks' report emphasizes the need to balance innovation with strong security frameworks as GenAI continues to reshape business operations. The company advocates for a careful approach to integrating GenAI, one that allows businesses to embrace its transformative potential while mitigating associated risks. To ensure accuracy, the research analyzed GenAI traffic logs from 7,051 customers worldwide over the course of 2024. Additionally, anonymized DLP data from January to March 2025 was included. All data was collected and reviewed in compliance with stringent privacy and security standards to maintain customer confidentiality. The report's insights were derived from GenAI usage across Prisma Access and Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) environments, focusing on third-party GenAI apps accessed within these systems. Ultimately, Palo Alto Networks aims to equip businesses with the knowledge to safely navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape and capitalize on its benefits without compromising data security.
Business Journals
30-05-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
AI agents represent a new evolution for North Texas
North Texas businesses, like other innovators, are experimenting with generative AI (GenAI) and bringing historic change to organizations of every type. While GenAI is exciting, a distinct new chapter in AI's evolution is already upon us: AI agents. AI agents are software systems that can complete complex tasks and meet objectives with little or no human intervention, according to our recent State of Generative AI in the Enterprise report. They're called agents because they wield the agency to act independently, planning and executing actions to achieve a specified goal. The vision for agentic AI, as the field is called, is that autonomous AI agents will reliably execute assigned tasks by digesting multimodal data (text, images, audio, video), using various tools to complete work, and coordinate with other AI agents — all while learning from their experience. Agents in action Agentic AI is capturing interest and attention among senior business leaders worldwide, and North Texas is no exception. Businesses in our region aim to enable agent creation without coding, manage agents at hyperscale and use agents to provide cybersecurity. What's more, data center supply, critical for any flavor of AI, has more than doubled in Dallas-Fort Worth since 2020. Software development is one example that illustrates agentic AI's power. Rather than assigning teams of programmers to manually write, test and debug code, an agentic system can be given a prompt to write, test and validate a piece of software, requiring little human intervention — and achieving the task at a fraction of the time that traditional processes require, and allowing programmers to be redeployed to other activities such as training, etc. In addition, agents are likely to accelerate and bring new value to places and processes, including back-office groups such as finance, HR and call centers. When and where we'll see agentic AI adoption With agentic AI, the question is not if North Texas organizations will use it, but when. Around half of the leaders surveyed for our State of Generative AI in the Enterprise report expressed interest in pursuing agentic AI (52%) and multiagent systems (45%). Yet the majority of respondents (55%-70%, depending on the challenge) believe their organizations will need at least 12 months to resolve adoption challenges such as governance, training, talent, building trust and addressing data issues. Getting started While there are still many challenges to overcome — and technical complexities to sort out — now is the time to start preparing: Develop a strategic roadmap and assess which tasks and workflows are well-suited for agentic AI. Identify specific goals and desired value. Map out the risks associated with autonomous agents and create mitigation plans. Start with low-risk use cases that use noncritical data — with human oversight as a backup. These early steps can help test and build the data management, cybersecurity and governance capabilities necessary for safe agentic AI applications. Once your organization is comfortable, it can then progress to applications that use more proprietary data, have access to more tools and operate more autonomously. If you'd like to learn from your peers, I highly recommend the Dallas Regional Chamber. It has been a leader in the region, showing deep commitment to fostering the growth of startups, innovation and university research to strengthen that ecosystem. Senior vice president of research and innovation, Duane Dankesreiter, has been a force for forging partnerships with private and public companies and educational institutions. In Dankesreiter's words, 'Dallas-Fort Worth has emerged as the home of applied AI. Our biggest companies aren't just experimenting — they're using AI to solve real problems, drive efficiency and create new opportunities. For leaders who want to be on the cutting edge of AI-driven innovation, there's no better place to be than right here, right now.' As North Texas businesses continue their AI journey, those who successfully integrate AI agents into their operations could gain significant competitive advantages in speed, efficiency and productivity. The time to prepare is now — by developing strategic roadmaps, identifying suitable workflows and building the necessary governance frameworks to safely and effectively harness this transformative technology. Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ('DTTL'), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as 'Deloitte Global') does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the 'Deloitte' name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see
Business Journals
30-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Seattle area tech industry stands to gain from GenAI: Insights from local Deloitte leader
Seattle, always a leader in technological innovation, stands to gain significantly from some of the biggest trends we forecast for the tech sector in the coming years. The city and its major tech companies, engineering centers and thriving tech talent pool will enable the region to capitalize on a surge in global IT investment. In addition, some 13,000 tech companies call the area home and they attract more than 275,000 workers, along with significant U.S. venture capital investment. Analysts project that global IT spending will grow by 9.3% in 2025, with data center and software segments expected to grow at double-digit rates. Worldwide spending on AI is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 29% from 2024 to 2028. A major source of opportunity is GenAI, as well as emerging and evolving AI technologies such as agentic AI. In short, artificial intelligence is and will continue to drive transformational changes for businesses, in back- and front-office operations, product development and software engineering and product and service offerings. Much of the energy and investment is coming from within tech itself — nearly a third of tech leaders surveyed by Deloitte's State of Generative AI in the Enterprise Q4 report rapid adoption of GenAI by their companies —compared with 11% of leaders in other industries. In tech companies, at-scale implementations are progressing fastest in IT (including cybersecurity), followed by product development and research and development — outpacing nontech organizations. But growth in this sector depends on building trust, security, governance and overall data quality. Deloitte's analysis of companies adopting GenAI has identified a group of 'trust builders' that place greater emphasis on data quality, governance and security capabilities, along with reducing algorithmic hallucinations. In addition, trust builders prioritize employee transparency about goals and potential impacts and show empathy and kindness across tool adoption. In our analysis, 40% of tech companies fall into the proactive trust builder category — versus only 27% of nontech organizations. Attention to trust appears to pay off: trust builders are 18% more likely than other organizations to rank in the top third of companies achieving expected benefits from GenAI (including improving products and services, spurring innovation and growth, improving productivity and efficiency, reducing costs, enhancing customer relationships and increasing revenue). We see similar focus on trust in the consumer sector – among early GenAI adopters, those who report high or very high trust that their data is secure are more likely to say they use GenAI daily and that it 'significantly exceeds' their expectations. Trust builds confidence and confidence builds engagement. But there is work to be done here. Our report highlighted that while 82% of surveyed executives believe secure, trustworthy AI is essential, only 24% of current GenAI projects are secured — potentially leaving sensitive data and models exposed. A major factor for building consumer trust appears to be how well GenAI providers manage and provide control over the data they collect. The Deloitte Connected Consumer Survey found that only 17% of GenAI adopters feel their technology providers supply 'very clear' data privacy and security policies and give them 'very easy' control over their data. But in this group, 69% report high or very high trust that their GenAI providers will keep their data secure, while only 8% report low or very low trust. In contrast, among the 83% of GenAI adopters who don't consider their providers' privacy and security policies to be very clear or who find it hard to control their data, only 16% report a high or very high level of trust, while 44% report low or very low trust. This disparity highlights a path forward for GenAI providers: To help earn user trust and broader acceptance of GenAI technologies, they should not only enhance the security features of their offerings but also work to ensure that data policies are communicated clearly and that it's easy for users to manage their data (for example, to limit or customize what data gets collected). Seattle tech leaders not only need to lead in providing the best technology, but to lead in building trust, whether through policy or in data privacy and security. Cloud environments, for example, which manage critical data should be protected with robust encryption and Zero Trust architectures that require continuous verification of user and device identities. In my view, this will play to this area's strengths. Seattle's strong foundation of tech leadership and knowhow can deliver not only the growth promised by today's GenAI opportunities but also secure the infrastructure and supply chains behind it. This publication contains general information only and Deloitte is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. Deloitte shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this publication. Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private comp any limited by guarantee ('DTTL'), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as 'Deloitte Global') does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the 'Deloitte' name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see
