Simon Baxter

The UK Government is beginning the next stage of testing the GOV.UK AI chatbot through providing advice to small businesses. The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said that up to 15,000 people will be able to ask the GOV.UK Chatbot for advice on business rules and support, with the AI linked to 30 of GOV.UK’s business pages, such as ‘Set up a business’ and ‘Search for a trade mark’.

California HQ’ed cybersecurity supplier Fortinet reported total revenues for Q3 grew 13% to $1.5bn, driven by 19% service revenue growth, with product revenues returning to growth as the impact of backlogs reduced.

AI-powered software development startup Cogna has raised $15m in Series A funding for its platform which is using AI to automate the IT consultancy and software development process.

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Cisco saw revenues decline for the fourth quarter in a row as product backlogs from its networking business continue to drag on growth. Total revenues were down -6% to $13.8bn in Q1 FY25.

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Tech Mahindra has announced the launch of TechM agentX - a suite of GenAI-powered solutions designed to drive intelligent automation. The solutions will address inefficiencies in traditional operations, enabling enterprises to achieve enhanced productivity, scalability, and user experience through automating complex business, IT, and data tasks, improving productivity by up to 70% according to the firm.

Accenture has announced new services and capabilities to boost cyber resilience through the power of GenAI, deepfake protection and quantum-safe data security solutions. Cybersecurity continues to be one of Accenture’s top performing business areas, consistently posting very strong double digit growth with headcount in its cybersecurity practise growing by 30%+ in 2024 to more than 25,000 people.

Nvidia continues to post eye watering growth numbers as it capitalises on the demand for AI infrastructure. Q3 revenues were up 94% yoy to $35.1bn, down from the 122% yoy growth we saw in Q2, with Data centre revenue up 112% to $30.8bn. Q4 revenues are expected to grow c.70% yoy, a significant slowdown from the exceptional 265% annual growth one year prior.

Cybersecurity platform supplier Palo Alto Networks (PAN) has started FY25 much as expected, with revenue up 14% to $2.1bn. Demand continues to be driven by a combination of customer refreshes, capacity expansion, and selective competitive displacement. Cloud security and Cortex security operations are both growing in significance, in Q4 cloud security crossed the $700m milestone, while this quarter Cortex crossed the $1bn milestone.