Product Marketing Lead

Africa's AI ambitions hinge on data. Karthik Akula, regional head, Middle East and Africa at Freshworks, speaking to ITWeb Africa at the ITWeb Cloud Summit 2026 in Johannesburg. African organisations need to clean up their data and remove friction between technology systems if they are to ensure growing artificial intelligence (AI) adoption results in meaningful business value. This is according to Karthik Akula, regional head, Middle East and Africa at Freshworks, speaking to ITWeb Africa at the ITWeb Cloud Summit 2026 in Johannesburg. Akula said the next phase of AI adoption will be less about waiting for more capable AI models and more about preparing organisations to use the technology effectively across existing systems. "The difference is going to be how to cut through the clutter in organisations, which impedes AI adoption. Cutting through this clutter means asking and answering fundamental questions Akula added, such as can you clean up your data? "Can you try to remove the friction points between systems to enable AI to operate amongst multiple connected systems and get the context that is necessary for it to take some actions?" To be action-ready, AI must be able to operate within the permissions, policies and governance frameworks established by organisations. However, Akula said AI adoption remains uneven across the continent, reflecting differences in IT maturity, industries and regulatory environments. For organisations that can overcome those internal barriers, AI could provide an opportunity to help narrow the technology gap between African businesses and more mature international markets. "AI is a fantastic opportunity for African organisations to really level up," Akula said. Rather than requiring African businesses to replicate the infrastructure built by more mature technology markets, AI could enable organisations to build on capabilities already available through cloud-based software and platforms. Africa's infrastructure constraints, including connectivity and energy challenges, do not necessarily prevent organisations from benefiting from AI, Akula said. The growing availability of AI through software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service models means organisations do not have to establish large physical AI infrastructures locally. At the same time, the growing availability of large language models means organisations can focus on developing applications tailored to local requirements rather than building the underlying AI technology themselves. "Africa can benefit from building and customising specific use cases that are relevant to the continent." However, as Akula explains, the challenge is to ensure those applications are supported by the organisational foundations needed to make AI useful. For Akula, that means focusing on adopting technology that is already available rather than waiting for a future generation of AI to solve organisational shortcomings. "The real value comes from its adoption, even in the current form, rather than looking for a better version of AI," he concluded.

Keeper Security Freshservice Workflow App streamlines vault and Privileged Access request process. Oct 01, 2026, 07:00 ET New integration enables IT and security teams to search the Keeper vault and submit access requests directly from the Freshservice ticket sidebar CHICAGO, Oct. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Keeper Security, the leading zero-trust and zero-knowledge identity security and Privileged Access Management (PAM) platform, today announces a Freshservice Workflow integration that connects vault and privileged access requests to the ticketing systems IT and security teams already use. The integration lets agents fulfill Keeper vault access and approval requests - including Endpoint Privilege Manager and Cloud SSO device approvals - directly from a Freshservice ticket. The workflow bottleneck experienced with other solutions is eliminated by removing the need for agents to leave tickets for approvals, log into a separate system or move decisions through unaudited side channels like email or chat. Streamlining Ticket Management and Approval Access approvals often stall after the initial request creation. A user submits a helpdesk ticket, but the person fulfilling it has to leave that ticket, log into a separate system, track down the right record or folder and manually grant permission before reporting back. Each handoff introduces delays and moves access decisions outside of the audit trail. The Keeper Security Freshservice Workflow App removes that handoff. When an employee submits a request through a Freshservice service catalog item, the assigned agent can search through Keeper content, configure permissions and approve or deny the request from a Keeper Vault tab inside the ticket itself. Every action runs through a customer-hosted Keeper Commander ServiceMode endpoint, so Keeper's zero-knowledge encryption and access controls stay intact, and Keeper never stores credentials inside Freshservice's IT Service Management (ITSM) and Enterprise Service Management (ESM) platform. "The cryptographic boundary cannot move outside Keeper," said Craig Lurey, CTO and Co-founder of Keeper Security. "This integration processes every approval through Commander ServiceMode on infrastructure owned and controlled by the customer, so the attack surface doesn't expand when you wire Freshservice into your approval workflow. Freshservice is the interface for the request, never the place where secrets are stored." "Every access request is an identity decision, and the further those decisions drift from a governed system, the weaker the audit trail becomes," said Darren Guccione, CEO and Co-founder of Keeper Security. "Integrating Keeper into Freshservice keeps approval decisions inside a ticketing system that security teams already trust, which means zero standing privilege and full audit control stay intact. This becomes increasingly important in the agentic era, as access requests multiply across both human and machine identities." The integration also supports Endpoint Privilege Manager and Cloud SSO device approvals when paired with Keeper's ITSM for Freshservice app, so security admins maintain a single ticketing interface for both incident-driven access requests and routine approval workflows. Availability The Keeper Security Freshservice Workflow App is available now in the Freshworks Marketplace for organizations with an active Keeper Commander deployment. To learn more about the integration, visit docs.keeper.io. About Keeper Security Keeper Security is the leading zero-trust and zero-knowledge identity security solution, trusted by millions of people and thousands of organizations globally. KeeperPAM(R) is Keeper's privileged access management platform that unifies password and passkey management, secrets management, privileged session management and endpoint privilege management in a single cloud-native platform, protected with quantum-resistant encryption. KeeperAI delivers real-time, AI-native threat detection across every privileged session. As AI agents proliferate and identity becomes the defining attack surface, Keeper governs access for humans, machines, non-human identities and AI agents, serving as the unified control plane for access, compliance and visibility across the enterprise. For more information, visit KeeperSecurity.com. SOURCE Keeper Security

Freshworks has granted Ryan Manning, its newly appointed Chief Product and Technology Officer, a restricted stock unit award covering 1,162,790 shares of Class A common stock under its 2022 Inducement Plan. The award was granted in accordance with Nasdaq Stock Market Listing Rule 5635(c)(4) as an inducement for Manning to join the company. The award will vest over approximately four years, with one-sixteenth vesting each quarter following the grant date. Vesting is contingent on Manning's continued employment with Freshworks through the relevant vesting dates. Freshworks describes itself as an AI-powered, unified service operations platform serving organisations including Bridgestone, New Balance, S&P Global, and Sony Music.