Welcome address: Velvet-Belle Templeman, publishing director, iTnews

Launching the 2026 iTnews Cloud Covered Report

 How Aussie tech leaders turn cloud into AI advantage: A snapshot of cloud-driven AI adoption across Australian enterprises 

8:45 am

Dicker Data Welcome and Industry Trends Analysis: 

 Organisations today must find ways to operate efficiently and respond rapidly to changing demands, often with limited resources. Dean Corcoran, Chief Technology Officer for Partners at Microsoft and Daniel Janicki Microsoft Azure Practice Lead at Dicker Data, will address the importance of moving data to cloud environments as a foundation for AI transformation.

Learn how Microsoft customers are modernising their core infrastructure to improve resilience and agility, implementing unified data governance to accelerate analytical insights, and adopting AI in ways that enhance innovation, protect organisational reputation, and deliver measurable improvements in business performance 

9:15 am

Panel 1 - Merivale and Cubesys

Modernising the Digital Workplace with Azure Virtual Desktop  

As organisations scale cloud environments and support increasingly flexible workforces, IT leaders must modernise infrastructure in ways that improve security, governance and operational efficiency. James Surridge, Lead Infrastructure & Cloud Engineer at Merivale, alongside Shabaz Darr, Senior Cloud Consultant at Cubesys, will discuss how the hospitality group transitioned from a legacy Citrix environment to Azure Virtual Desktop.

Learn how Merivale modernised its remote desktop infrastructure to deliver scalable and secure remote access, improved visibility and management across its Azure environment, and strengthened monitoring and cost control capabilities to support future growth and innovation.

9:35 am

Audience discussion

Panel 2 - NRMA and Antares

Deploying AI at scale: Building a smarter workplace with enterprise AI

As organisations move from AI experimentation to enterprise-wide adoption, leaders are increasingly focused on how to deploy AI securely, drive workforce adoption and deliver measurable business outcomes. In this session, NRMA and Antares will share how they implemented QBot, an enterprise AI platform deployed securely within NRMA’s Microsoft Azure environment.

Learn how NRMA reduced report generation times from one week to just ten minutes, improved operational efficiency through AI-powered workflows, and established strong governance and change management practices to support long-term AI adoption at scale.