The IT Nerd

Everyone knows about the risks of GenAI, but the wave is already here, and it’s far riskier: agentic AI. These are AI systems that don’t just generate text or insights — they take actions, execute workflows, change system states, and make decisions autonomously.

Think of it as AI with the ability to “press buttons,” not just give advice.

A new analysis from Keepit, the world’s only vendor‑independent, immutable SaaS data‑protection platform, argues that agentic AI represents a fundamental shift in enterprise risk — one that most organizations are not prepared for.

Why this matters now

Agentic AI is already being embedded into SaaS platforms, IT operations, and enterprise workflows. As these systems gain autonomy, the risk profile changes dramatically:

• AI can now act — not just advise. It can archive, delete, grant access, move data, schedule jobs, and initiate restores.
• Mistakes scale instantly. A single hallucinated parameter or mis‑scoped command can impact an entire tenant, not just a file.
• Rollback becomes the new cybersecurity perimeter. Without immutable, independent backup and point‑in‑time recovery, agentic AI errors become permanent.
• New attack vectors are emerging. Including memory injection (MINJA), prompt‑based escalation, and automation loops between agents.
• The winners won’t be those with the smartest AI — but those with the strongest control model.

This is a fresh angle in a saturated AI news cycle: speed vs. safety, and how enterprises can adopt agentic AI without surrendering control.

Please find a full blog post, published today, on Keepit’s blog here. 

 Keepit today announced a strengthened, consolidated global channel organization designed to accelerate growth through partners and reinforce its ambition to become the most partner-friendly organization in the world.

The expanded channel team is led globally by Jan Ursi, Global Vice President of Channels, and anchored by three regional leaders covering Southern Europe, Northern Europe, and the Americas. Together, the team brings deep channel experience, regional expertise, and a unified strategy built around one principle: partners come first.

Keepit operates a 100 percent channel-led go-to-market model, with all sales delivered through value-added resellers, managed service providers, GSIs and strategic alliances. Since launching the Keepit Partner Network and pivoting to a partner-only sales motion, the company has focused on creating a consistent global framework for enablement, joint marketing and collaborative sales execution — while giving regional teams the freedom to adapt to local market needs.

Ursi leads global channel strategy, messaging, and coordination across regions, aligning partner recruitment, enablement, and pipeline initiatives under a single narrative. His approach positions the channel as the default route to market, not an alternative, and prioritizes long-term collaboration over short-term gains.

Southern Europe and DACH: Building an ecosystem of fans

Southern Europe and DACH— including France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, as well as Germany, Austria and Switzerland— is led by Cyril VanAgt, Regional Vice President of Channel, EMEA South. Based in Paris, VanAgt brings decades of channel leadership experience from Nutanix and NetApp.

The focus in Southern Europe is rapid ecosystem growth through local activation. This includes region-specific partner campaigns, PR-driven launches, and a structured Partner Academy program combining sales, technical, and marketing tracks. The academy model, already piloted in Paris, is being templated for rollout across the region.

The focus in DACH is to build on the region’s success by expanding the Keepit channel team to better support our top VAR and MSP partners across the Enterprise and Commercial segments, and to execute a strong distribution strategy to develop a run-rate business for the mid-sized and SMB segment in the region.

Northern Europe: Scaling repeatable success

Northern Europe — covering the UK and Ireland, the Nordics, Central Eastern Europe, and the Benelux — is led by Alex Walsh, Regional Vice President of Channel, EMEA North. Walsh brings more than 12 years of enterprise SaaS and channel experience, including senior leadership roles at Veeam and AppSense.

In the region, the focus is on expanding tier-one value-added reseller, managed service provider and distributor relationships, supported by a data-led strategy, consistent enablement cycles, and strong engagement with regional channel media.

Americas: Momentum through continuity

In the Americas, the channel organization is led by Jill Miracle, Director Channels Americas. Her focus is maintaining momentum with strategic focus partners while reinforcing Keepit’s long-term commitment to a partner-only model.

This includes synchronized enablement through Keepit’s global Partner Academy tracks, ensuring American partners have timely access to marketing assets, product updates, and certifications.

Global focus built around practical execution

With a unified global strategy and strong regional leadership, Keepit’s channel organization is designed to scale with partners — and grow together.

Keepit’s channel focus is built around practical execution: predictable partner economics, consistent enablement, and a vendor-independent SaaS backup and recovery platform that partners can take to customers across industries. The consolidated structure is designed to make it easier for partners to engage with Keepit, build pipeline, and scale delivery with a repeatable model.

With Ursi leading global strategy and regional leaders driving local execution, Keepit plans to increase partner recruitment, expand certifications, and deepen joint marketing across priority markets in 2026 — with one goal in mind: help partners grow profitable, durable SaaS data protection practices.

To become a Keepit partner, contact partner@keepit.com or visit keepit.com/partners.

Last year, Keepit predicted that 2025 would be the year SaaS data protection stops being optional and becomes a must-have — as data volume increases, API strain grows, and practical AI solutions start to win over hype.

Now, as we look ahead to 2026, our view sharpens. The growing complexity across cloud, hybrid, compliance and threat landscapes forces us to confront three truths: first, protecting cloud data must become non-negotiable; second, AI should be used deliberately to defend, not just to automate; third, compliance and regulatory pressure are reshaping how and where data lives.

Here are four hard-edged predictions from Keepit’s expert voices — each built on real trends and a clear roadmap, not marketing fluff.

• AI offense evolves faster than defense — unless leaders demand transparency

Kim Larsen, Chief Information Security Officer

AI-driven attacks will become highly adaptive. By 2026, adversaries will use AI systems that map entire infrastructures in seconds, identify weak links deep in the supply chain, and shift tactics in real time to bypass defenses. Hybrid warfare will amplify this trend as hostile actors blend geopolitical intent with AI-enabled automation at scale.

Defenders will match this only if they adopt AI with intention and transparency. Security teams will use AI to understand exposure, strengthen detection, and model where risk concentrates. But success will depend on knowing how an AI system works, what data it relies on, and how decisions are made. CISOs will demand clarity, control, and accountability. The organizations that win will be those that use AI to enhance—not replace—human judgment.

• Hybrid is back—and so is the race for skills

Jakob Østergaard, Chief Technology Officer

Hybrid environments will grow faster than anyone expected. After years of cloud-first narratives, companies are re-evaluating what belongs where. Political instability, rising sovereignty requirements, and cost pressures are pushing critical workloads back on-premise. Servers, storage systems, and licensed software are seeing a resurgence because organizations want balance, not absolutism.

This shift exposes the growing skills gap. Demand for deep technical expertise in networking, Linux, and systems engineering is accelerating while talent inflow is shrinking. By 2026, this shortage will influence everything from innovation speed to resilience planning.

Meanwhile, quantum and AI will face a public reckoning. The promise of crypto-breaking quantum machines and near-term AGI will give way to more realistic timelines. Investments will continue, but the narrative will mature as enterprises look for practical, defensible value rather than speculative breakthroughs.

• AI stays practical in 2026, while modernization remains the real priority

Niels van Ingen, SVP Business Development and Strategy

AI adoption in 2026 will feel familiar. Most enterprises will continue using agentic AI to automate repeatable tasks and augment existing processes, not reinvent them. Only one in 5 organizations report getting meaningful value from their AI tools at the current time with key adoptions challenges being cost and lack of control mechanisms in context of the desired outcomes. Autonomous business intelligence will remain niche because the foundations including infrastructure required are simply not ready: data quality, governance maturity, and organizational skills still lag far behind the ambition.

Modernization efforts will remain the primary focus. Companies will keep working through the practical realities and motions to replace platforms like VMware and Citrix, while using SaaS to accelerate outcomes where it makes sense. At the same time, compliance and regulatory pressure will intensify. Leaders will need a clear understanding of sovereignty requirements, new operating models, and the talent divide between “old way” and “new way” practitioners.

In 2026, CIOs will be planning for what IT must look like in 2030. The problems they solve today will not be the ones they face next and there is a lot of pressure on the IT suite to ensure companies are ready and competitive as the AI  transformation gains momentum.

• Compliance goes default: NIS2 and DORA will reshape every SaaS RFP

Jan Ursi, VP Global Channels

By 2026, compliance expectations will become embedded in nearly every SaaS data protection RFP. Requirements tied to NIS2 and DORA will shift from “requested” to “assumed,” especially in finance, energy, healthcare, and the public sector. Organizations will insist on local digital sovereignty: data stored in-region, zero sub-processors, and guaranteed access even if the original SaaS platform is unavailable.

Because many companies are still in the early stages of meeting these regulations, demand will rise sharply as deadlines tighten. Local partners will play an essential role. They understand national sovereignty rules, infrastructure constraints, and the operational realities of regulated industries. As a result, the channel will become a core enabler of compliant SaaS adoption, not an afterthought.

About Keepit

Keepit provides a next-level SaaS data protection platform purpose-built for the cloud. Securing data in a vendor-independent cloud safeguards , boosts cyber resilience, and future-proofs data protection. Unique, separate, and immutable data storage with no sub-processors ensures compliance with local regulations and mitigates the impact of ransomware while guaranteeing continuous data access, business continuity, and fast and effective disaster recovery. Headquartered in Copenhagen with offices and data centers worldwide, over 20,000 companies trust Keepit for its ease of use and effortless backup and recovery of cloud data.

Keepit has released a new report — Data Sovereignty: Take Control of Your Data — along with expert commentary from CISO Kim Larsen that breaks down why sovereignty has moved beyond compliance and is now a core security and resilience concern. The report notes that many organizations believe sovereignty is a legal or CIO priority, but the research shows it is increasingly a security architecture challenge.

Key Themes: The research highlights several issues now directly impacting SOC, IR, and cyber-resilience teams:

• Hyperscaler monoculture = single points of failure. 97% of cloud infrastructure sits with a handful of providers, creating systemic risk when outages or misconfigurations cascade across SaaS, identity, and backup platforms.
• CLOUD Act + Schrems II = conflicting access rules. Security teams must defend information that may be legally accessible to foreign jurisdictions — even when stored in-region.
• Hybrid warfare is targeting cloud identity and control planes.
  The report details growing APT activity against cloud identity providers and the risk of dependent ecosystems failing simultaneously.
• Most SaaS backups rely on the same hyperscalers as production.
  Making “air-gapped” recovery impossible in many breach or outage scenarios.
• Regulators are raising the bar on resilience.
  Under DORA, NIS2, BaFin, and CNIL/ANSSI guidance, CISOs must demonstrate independence, portability, and provable control — not just encryption and regional storage.

Why this is timely for security practitioners

• Attackers are exploiting cross-cloud dependencies.
• Resilience mandates are forcing redesigns of backup + identity strategy.
• EU regulators are signaling that US-controlled clouds may not meet sovereignty requirements for healthcare, public sector, and critical infrastructure.
• Organizations are reassessing “cloud-by-default” models and returning to hybrid or sovereign-cloud setups for high-value assets.

Report Download:
https://www.keepit.com/data-sovereignty-in-the-cloud/

Expert Commentary:
https://www.keepit.com/blog/data-sovereignty-report

Keepit, the world’s only vendor-neutral and truly immutable cloud dedicated to SaaS data protection, today announced a strategic financial update to upsize and refinance its credit facilities amounting to $60 million USD from the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO) and HSBC Innovation Banking. This move is designed to leverage the recent $50 million USD funding round from December 2024 .

Financing overview and strategic rationale

The refinancing plan consists of upsizing by $20 million USD and refinancing $40 million USD of existing HSBC Innovation Banking/EIFO facilities. The total facility will increase from $40 million pre-financing to $60 million post-financing with only a portion of the previous amount drawn today. The company aims to build upon the momentum from the funding round in December 2024, reflecting strong growth.

Company position and future outlook

Keepit is positioned strongly with cash reserves projected to remain robust for years ahead. The company has experienced significant growth since the previous year. Keepit is expanding its market focus towards larger clients, having demonstrated relevance and value to this segment. The additional funds raised will be directed toward future-proofing the organization, supporting ongoing product development, innovation, and efforts to deepen market penetration.

Keepit provides a next-level SaaS data protection platform purpose-built for the cloud. Securing data in a vendor-independent cloud safeguards essential business applications, boosts cyber resilience, and future-proofs data protection. Unique, separate, and immutable data storage with no sub-processors ensures compliance with local regulations and mitigates the impact of ransomware while guaranteeing continuous data access, business continuity, and fast and effective disaster recovery. Headquartered in Copenhagen with offices and data centers worldwide, more than 18,000 companies trust Keepit for its ease of use and effortless backup and recovery of cloud data.  

For more information visit www.keepit.com.