“Leveraging Telstra’s concept of programmability, [Telstra group executive for product and technology Kim Krogh Andersen] talks about ‘network as a product’; this is about enabling the next iteration of software-defined networking.
“For us, that’s about a world where agents are continually requesting and consuming capacity – compute capacity, AI capacity, and network capacity.
“Having that programmability done in a secure manner is a really important part of how you [create solutions] for the future.”
This reimagines how connectivity and security have to play into enterprises.
“As you think about AI playing into how customers operate, that’s why we’re looking at AI‑first in how we modernise with customers and building that into a set of frameworks.
“Customers don’t have to worry about the security of how that’s deployed in their own environment. We’ll help them deploy in a secure manner, and then also operate in a secure manner as well.”
One of the examples of how Versent is thinking about bringing AI‑first delivery models and making that accessible to its customers across all levels is App Xray, an AI-accelerated assessment tool designed to help businesses understand the complexity and modernisation opportunities for their legacy applications.
“App Xray is a quick assessment on a legacy application, and it is AI‑driven,” Nicholls explained. “Something that would have historically taken two to four weeks to do — code‑base assessment, documentation, assessment against standards, compliance, regulatory — is now a 24 to 48‑hour job.
“You get a business case out of it, you get a set of recommendations, a risk assessment against particular frameworks, whether it’s, say, SOC 2 [security and organisation control] or financial services.
“If you think about that in the context of a customer who might have half a dozen legacy applications they’ve built over time, that would have been a half‑million to a million‑dollar consulting engagement just to do the assessment work.”
With the ability to see the start of how real acceleration can be and what the practical examples are – ultimately that’s what customers need want, observed Nicholls.
They want to free up legacy capabilities and costs to turn that into things they can innovate on in the future.
“That’s always been a bit of a challenge – is it the chicken or the egg? Do you invest and modernise legacy, or do you find some extra cost to build something new on top of it?” he questioned. “Lots of companies have done that over time – ‘we’ve got this thing here, but we need a new thing. We’ll build that, that, and that.”
“10 years down the track, you’ve got 25 applications doing something that, in a modern world, you could have three doing.”
AWS Australia and New Zealand Pip Gilbert said Versent has consistently delivered for AWS customers across some of the most complex cloud and AI environments in Australia.
“We’re now seeing agentic AI reshaping how organisations operate, and the potential is enormous,” she added. “Capturing that value requires partners with the technical depth and operational expertise to deliver it responsibly and at scale. This agreement puts a framework around that, giving customers a clear path from concept to production.”