The introduction of AI is driving Australian businesses to move towards container-based application infrastructure. At the same time, new research from Nutanix shows that misuse of AI tools and organizational silos are raising security and governance concerns.
Australian results from Nutanix’s latest Enterprise Cloud Index study show that 90% of respondents say AI is accelerating their organization’s container adoption. The findings also highlight strong concerns about data sovereignty and widespread awareness of “shadow AI,” where applications and agents are deployed without IT oversight.
Containers package software and its dependencies into standard units that run in different environments. These are now common approaches in modern application development and the deployment of AI-enabled workloads. This result suggests that as the use of AI expands across business functions, organizations across the region see containers as a path to faster software delivery and more consistent operations.
Container force
This study shows that the use of containers continues to increase. Approximately 85% of Australian respondents expect the use of containers in applications to increase over the next three years. Two-thirds (66%) said they are already building both new and existing applications in containers.
Senior executives are also driving AI adoption goals. Almost half of respondents (48%) expect their organization to have five or more AI-enabled applications within the next three years. However, some deployment models are less reliable. If organizations need to bring AI workloads on-premises, 87% said their current infrastructure is not fully ready.
Michael Alp, managing director of A/NZ at Nutanix, said the results showed a strong appetite for AI, but also highlighted fundamental work that still needed attention.
“It’s clear that Australian organizations are ready to embrace AI, but it requires resilient, reliable and well-managed infrastructure. Containerization has emerged as a fundamental pillar of local AI and application strategies, but broader adoption requires a rethink of the underlying infrastructure,” said Michael Alp, Managing Director, A/NZ at Nutanix.
He also pointed to the operational complexities of running old and new systems in parallel.
“Rather than managing two-speed infrastructure stacks, having a common operating environment to manage both containerized and traditional workloads would address key concerns such as shadow IT and data sovereignty,” Alp said.
Shadow AI risks
While the adoption of AI is driving infrastructure change, our findings highlight concerns about how AI tools are being deployed within organizations. Around 72% of Australian respondents said they see AI applications and agents being deployed by employees in departments other than IT. Almost all leaders surveyed (92%) believe that misuse of AI poses a risk.
Respondents associate that risk with the leakage of sensitive data and intellectual property. This result reflects broader corporate challenges. While staff can access third-party AI services and build lightweight automation without formal approval, governance frameworks often lag behind rapid experimentation.
Internal operating models can also exacerbate the problem. The majority of Australian respondents (84%) say silos between business units and IT make it difficult to effectively execute technology initiatives. These gaps can delay deployment, complicate monitoring, and lead to inconsistent controls over data usage and model access across the organization.
Data sovereignty focus
Data sovereignty emerged as a particularly strong theme in Australia. Approximately 89 percent of respondents said infrastructure is a top priority when making infrastructure decisions (vs. 80 percent globally).
This priority is likely to influence where organizations run their infrastructure and place data used in AI applications. More than half (60%) of Australian leaders surveyed said they felt the need to run their infrastructure domestically, either on-premises or via a local cloud region, primarily due to security and data protection concerns.
Agents and productivity
The Australian survey results also show strong interest in AI agent systems that can perform actions across software tools with limited human input. Most Australian IT executives surveyed (70%) expect their agents to improve productivity and efficiency, and 62% expect their agents to improve the customer or employee experience.
Some respondents believe that AI agents are impacting their business models. The survey found that 58% believe agencies can create new products, services and revenue streams while many organizations overcome governance, risk and infrastructure constraints.
The Enterprise Cloud Index study was conducted by Wakefield Research in November 2025. The study surveyed 1,600 cloud, IT and engineering executives (manager level and above) from organizations with 500 or more employees across multiple markets including Australia, UK, US, Japan, Singapore, Germany, France and India.
