JAKARTA — As organizations across Southeast Asia accelerate their adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), the next challenge is no longer choosing the right AI model but making sure their IT systems are ready to support it, according to Rajesh Ganesan, CEO of ManageEngine.
During the opening keynote of the ManageEngine Southeast Asia User Conference, Ganesan said organizations should first strengthen the foundations of their IT systems before expecting AI to deliver real business value. That includes improving data quality, security, system integration, and overall reliability.
“The AI outcomes will not be delivered by the smartest model that you can buy,” Ganesan said. “They will be delivered by the readiness of your infrastructure, of your people, which means your aspiration of becoming truly autonomous really depends on the reliability of the infrastructure, not just the models.”
The message reflects a growing realization among businesses that AI alone is not enough. Older IT systems, disconnected applications, and poor-quality data can prevent companies from getting the results they expect.
Ganesan said organizations should first ask whether they are operationally ready before making major AI investments.
“Beyond power and compute capacity, ask yourself: Are you operationally ready to leverage what AI offers?” he said. “Do you clearly understand the bottlenecks in your infrastructure? Do you understand the bottlenecks in the context of your business?”
He said companies need to know whether their existing IT systems can support AI, where their data goes, and whether they have the right security and governance policies in place.
One of the biggest challenges, he said, is data quality.
“If your data is not good, regardless of the power of the AI model, you are not going to see results, especially outcomes like autonomy, where you want the system to take care of everything,” Ganesan said.
He also pointed to practical challenges such as rising demand for computing power and increasing energy consumption in data centers as AI adoption grows. These constraints, he said, make efficient and reliable IT operations even more important.
According to Ganesan, organizations in Southeast Asia are taking a practical approach to AI adoption. Instead of moving everything to the cloud or deploying AI across every business function, many continue to use a mix of on-premises systems and cloud services.
He also noted that governments across the region are placing greater emphasis on data sovereignty, requiring organizations to pay closer attention to where data is stored and processed.
“Simplicity is still going to matter a lot,” Ganesan said. “You need not go with only the top choices that are available. Can you make pragmatic choices? Can you make practical choices, like using multiple different models or small models for specific business functions?”
Rather than chasing the latest AI trend, Ganesan urged organizations to focus on building a stronger IT foundation by improving how they manage data, connect systems, protect user identities, and monitor operations.
Those capabilities, he said, create the stable IT environment needed to support more advanced AI applications in the future.
To support that vision, ManageEngine outlined plans to bring its IT management portfolio into a more unified platform covering service management, endpoint management, identity and access management, security operations, observability, and analytics.
The company said AI capabilities, including its Zia technology, will be embedded across the platform to automate routine tasks, improve security, orchestrate workflows, and help IT teams make faster decisions.
Ganesan said organizations have already gone through several stages of digital transformation, from digitizing manual processes and automating workflows to improving employee and customer experiences. The next phase, he said, is enabling systems to make decisions and respond automatically with minimal human intervention.
That goal, however, depends on having a reliable technology foundation.
“The catchphrase here is that differentiation can be unlocked only when you have reliability as the foundation of your digital infrastructure,” Ganesan said. “Every business today is a digital enterprise. For you to deliver more differentiation at a high pace, you need a strong, reliable digital layer.”
Summing up the company’s vision, Ganesan said organizations should remember one principle as they prepare for the next phase of digital transformation.
“We truly believe autonomy runs on reliability,” he said. “Models are not going to help you become completely AI-driven. It is your infrastructure, your understanding of the digital infrastructure, and your readiness.”