The battle lines against criminal cartels are shifting. No longer treated solely as criminal syndicates, these organizations have been formally designated foreign terrorist groups by executive order in early 2025 — elevating their activities to matters of national security. The move reflects a stark reality: cartels now operate with capabilities once reserved for nation-states, from drones and armored vehicles to sophisticated financial and cyber networks.

SAS, a global leader in data and AI, today unveiled new research that explores the use, impact and trustworthiness of AI. The IDC Data and AI Impact Report: The Trust Imperative, commissioned by SAS, found that IT and business leaders report having greater trust in generative AI than any other form of AI.

The United States has entered a new phase in its fight against transnational organized crime. When the federal government formally designated criminal cartels as foreign terrorist organizations by an executive order in early 2025, the move signaled that drug trafficking groups are no longer seen solely as law-enforcement targets. They are being recognized as highly capable non-state actors with advanced military-style operations.

The operating environment for global organizations is undergoing a structural shift. Disruptions once seen as isolated anomalies are now recurring features of doing business — and their impact is compounded by interconnected markets, complex supply chains, and heightened regulatory scrutiny. As the cadence and complexity of these disruptions grow, the ability to detect, assess, and respond to critical events is emerging as an enterprise‑wide competency, not just an operational function.

In 2025, enterprise resilience has shifted from a defensive posture to a core strategic capability. A convergence of threats — from geopolitical instability and extreme weather to cyber incidents and shifting compliance mandates — is redefining what it takes to keep people, assets, and operations safe. Critical event management (CEM), once a niche operational discipline, is now emerging as a board‑level priority.

In today’s digital commerce landscape, every transaction matters. Merchants spend heavily to attract and convert customers — yet many lose legitimate sales at the final stage because a payment is wrongly declined. These false declines frustrate customers, damage loyalty, and drain revenue.

Digital payment systems are undergoing a significant transformation as artificial intelligence reshapes how merchants manage risk, recover revenue and improve the customer experience. For years, online commerce has been constrained by a significant occurrence of false declines, when legitimate transactions are mistakenly or inappropriately rejected by payment processors.

Enterprises are racing to capture the benefits of artificial intelligence, but speed comes with risk. Business units now have the power to generate code and digital assets on their own, raising urgent questions about how to maintain control without slowing innovation. That balancing act is redefining the role of CIOs, according to Dan Priest, US Chief AI Officer at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

While the corporate C-suite is under mounting pressure to innovate at the speed of artificial intelligence, CIOs are struggling to respond to the imperative in a risk-adjusted manner that keeps governance, compliance, and strategic alignment intact. The challenge is no longer just about deploying technology efficiently — it is about enabling rapid experimentation while ensuring that new digital assets integrate securely into the enterprise.

This spring, Dr. Dani Bowie, Senior Vice President for Workforce AI at Aya Healthcare, released her book Reimagine Workforce Management with AI: A Roadmap for Healthcare Leaders. In a recent BizTechReports vidcast interview, she contended that technology can help organizations anticipate and adapt to demand surges, improve fairness in scheduling and ease administrative burdens that contribute to burnout. She was quick to add that adoption must keep the human workforce at the center of transformation.

Hospitals and health systems across the country are being forced to reconcile a stubborn reality: staffing shortages, rising demand and relentless financial pressure cannot be solved by incremental fixes. The question is no longer whether to rethink workforce management, but how to do so in a way that protects both patients and the people who care for them.

According to the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, India’s smartphone market shipped 70 million smartphones in 1H25, with a 0.9% growth YoY (year-over-year)—2Q25 registered growth of 7.3% YoY, shipping 37 million smartphones. While the market has rebounded from a two-quarter slump, subdued consumer demand and rising average selling prices (ASPs) are expected to limit the pace of annual recovery.

While early digital transformation in legal was marked by fragmented point solutions and patchwork systems, the focus today is on platform-based approaches that unify data, workflows, and decision-making. Embedded AI is at the heart of this transition, promising to automate repetitive tasks, streamline case management, and support more informed strategic choices. The goal is not simply to add another layer of software but to make AI a seamless, ever-present element of the practice — as invisible as spell-check, yet as essential as billing.

IDC estimates India’s overall software market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.8% potentially reaching US$35.9 billion during the 2025–2029 forecast period. During this period, the three primary categories of the software market, as classified by IDC – applications, application development and deployment (AD&D), and systems infrastructure (SI) software, are expected to grow at a CAGR of 15%, 31.2% and 13.2% respectively.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to redraw the competitive landscape in the legal sector, particularly among mid-market law firms that have historically lagged in technology adoption. Once reliant on spreadsheets, word processors and stitched-together case management tools, these firms are now facing pressure to standardize workflows, increase caseload throughput, and manage rising client expectations for speed and efficiency. The shift is less about experimenting with flashy new applications and more about embedding AI directly into core legal operations.

Public cloud services spending in the Asia/Pacific region is accelerating, fueled by rapid IT infrastructure modernization and the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Software and Public Cloud Services Spending Guide, public cloud services market in the region is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19.8% from 2025 to 2029, expanding from $53 billion in 2024 to $131 billion by 2029. This growth is fueled by the increasing adoption of Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service solutions, which are becoming essential for businesses aiming to enhance operational efficiency and drive innovation. Key sectors such as government, healthcare, and banking are leading the charge in IT infrastructure modernization, further accelerating cloud adoption across the region.

GCs and legal leaders often have a poor understanding of what is needed for effective technology implementation and use in their functions,” said Maesea McCalpin, Senior Principal, Research in Gartner’s Assurance Practice. “Many are unaware of necessary workflow changes, lack a realistic view of how systems can improve workflows, do not fully grasp the obstacles to implementation and effective use, and few have plans to address these challenges.

The ISG Buyers Guides for Data Platforms, produced by ISG Software Research, provide the rankings and ratings of 38 software providers and their products to support data storage, processing, analysis and presentation. The research finds that the traditional distinction between analytic and operational data platforms is blurring as more business applications use real-time, AI-powered analytic processing for functions such as personalization, real-time predictions and contextually relevant recommendations. To enable intelligent applications driven by GenAI and machine learning, providers are delivering data platform capabilities to support hybrid operational and analytic workloads.

The report highlights how a rapidly shifting and fragmented regulatory environment is driving a fundamental reset in enterprise technology and risk strategies. From data localization mandates to AI governance frameworks, organizations in markets such as India, Singapore, Japan, and Australia are now embedding regulatory foresight into their digital infrastructure. These mandates increasingly go beyond compliance—strengthening operational resilience, digital sovereignty, and customer trust.

“The MENA region is rapidly emerging as a global tech powerhouse, with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leveraging its stability, infrastructure and forward-looking policies to attract global partners and build digital skills that empower innovation and support resilient AI-driven economies,” said Mim Burt, Practice VP at Gartner. “Even amid global economic and geopolitical uncertainty, chief information officers (CIOs) in MENA are making strategic investments in AI, intelligent automation and multi-cloud strategies, while strengthening cyber defenses and advancing talent upskilling. These efforts are not only driving innovation and economic diversification but also contributing to the region’s projected IT spending growth in 2026.”