Marill, joining from Airbnb, where he held a similar leadership role, will oversee operations across the region and will be based in Paris.

The appointment gives OpenAI a senior executive focused solely on a region where demand for its products is increasing, but where political and business issues about dependence on American technology are also growing.

Emmanuel Marill will report to Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer at OpenAI.

“As demand for ChatGPT and Codex continues to grow rapidly all over the world, we are investing significantly in our international leadership and operations,” Kwon said in a statement.

OpenAI has been aiming to win more paying business customers as it faces the high cost of developing new artificial intelligence systems. Europe is an important market, although some officials and company leaders have urged stronger support for home-grown technology firms.

French startup Mistral AI has positioned itself as a European alternative to major US companies such as OpenAI.

At the same time, OpenAI is still reviewing parts of its infrastructure plans in the region. Earlier this month, the company paused its Stargate data centre project in the United Kingdom, citing regulation and energy costs.

Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s biggest backers, later agreed to rent data centre capacity in Norway that had originally been linked to the project. OpenAI said it is still exploring a separate computing agreement there.

Marill will also lead the company’s efforts in the Middle East, where OpenAI has invested heavily, especially in the United Arab Emirates.

Its partner in the country, G42, recently said plans for a large data centre project is still on track despite tensions linked to the US conflict with Iran.

OpenAI has also signed agreements with businesses in banking, pharmaceuticals and media across Europe. It has worked with governments in Germany, Greece and Ireland, while also planning to increase staff numbers in London.

The company said in February that business subscriptions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa had grown sevenfold over the previous year, though it did not disclose revenue for the region.

Globally, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has said OpenAI’s annualised revenue exceeded $20 billion last year.

The post OpenAI Appoints First Regional Chief for Europe, Middle East and Africa appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Once mostly limited to social media entertainment or occasional political manipulation, they are now fully integrated tools in cyberattack tactics.

This shift represents more than a technological evolution; it marks a transformation where human perception itself has become an attack surface.

Recognizing a familiar voice or face is no longer a guarantee of authenticity.

In this context, businesses face a threat that relies less on raw technical skill and more on subtle manipulation of human behaviour.

Fraud campaigns now exploit cloned voices and manipulated videos to simulate authentic communications, deceiving even the most vigilant employees.

In February 2024, an employee at a Hong Kong multinational transferred €24 million after being duped by a deepfake.

The scam succeeded because everything appeared authentic: accent, rhythm, tone… The widespread availability of these tools, thanks to their low cost and accessibility, accelerates the industrialization of such attacks.

A technological threat turned human

Attack simulations conducted with international organizations show that deepfakes are no longer a futuristic hypothesis but an established reality. A 2024 Anozr Way report projected deepfakes could increase from 500,000 in 2023 to 8 million in 2025.

Deepfakes exploit a rarely anticipated cybersecurity vulnerability: our instinctive trust in human interactions.

Cloned voices impersonate executives; videos generated from public content are embedded in credible scenarios to deceive experienced staff. Beyond technical sophistication, the industrialization of these practices is what should raise alarm.

Voice cloning now requires only a few seconds of publicly available audio, often available via public media such as YouTube or TikTok, allows artificial voices to be generated within minutes at low cost.

These voices are then used in automated campaigns, including mass phone calls conducted by conversational agents simulating convincing human interaction.

This paradigm shift moves the attack vector from IT systems to human behaviour, exploiting trust, urgency, and voice recognition.

Identity: the new attack surface

Across recent breaches, including those impacting M&S and JLR, we are witnessing a clear shift in attacker behaviour.

Adversaries no longer “hack in”, they simply “log in”. They obtain valid credentials through phishing, vishing, and social engineering campaigns, then use them to operate under the radar of traditional defenses. Deepfakes now extend this pattern by enabling the theft and imitation of identity itself.

A cloned voice or AI-generated face can bypass skepticism, convincing employees they are interacting with a trusted colleague or executive.

Identity has become the primary currency of access. As organizations strengthen their technical controls, attackers increasingly exploit human trust as the easiest route inside.

This convergence of social engineering and AI-driven impersonation means the next wave of attacks won’t just target vulnerabilities in IT systems, they’ll target people.

Awareness, doubt, and verification: the new pillars of cybersecurity

Most companies have focused cybersecurity efforts on protecting systems and data. However, with deepfakes, humans become the entry point.

These attacks exploit a major gap in current cybersecurity: the lack of verification reflexes in voice and video communications.

While most organizations run phishing awareness campaigns via email, awareness of deepfakes remains minimal.

Unlike phishing, now well understood, falsified calls or video conferences remain largely underestimated. The realism of deepfakes, especially under stress or urgency, obscures subtle cues that could raise alarms.

Detection depends on noticing small inconsistencies such as timing delays or slightly robotic speech, signs that are easy to miss during a busy day.

Organizations need to establish verification practices that go beyond technical controls. This includes contextual questions that only legitimate colleagues would know, answers that change regularly (e.g., “When did we last meet?”), or confirmation through secondary channels. “Trust but verify” has long been a motto in cybersecurity, but identity-based attacks such as deepfakes make it more relevant than ever.

“Robocalls,” already widely used to target individuals with daily AI-driven calls, can also be exploited by adversaries for illegitimate purposes. Here too, slight timing delays and intonation are key indicators to identify.

Therefore, team awareness can no longer be limited to email. It must include these new scenarios, train employees to recognize manipulations, and foster a culture of systematic verification. Trust must no longer be implicit, even when it seems natural.

The threat of deepfakes can no longer be seen as a technological curiosity or niche risk. It fundamentally challenges how companies manage trust, decision traceability, and communication security.

Organizations must integrate these concerns into governance: crisis simulations, verification protocols, redundant information channels, and continuous training.

More than a technological response, this requires an organizational, cognitive, and cultural approach. Against a digital illusion that relies on familiarity, only active vigilance can prevent the next attack from coming… through the CEO’s voice.

The post Deepfakes: The Next Human Vulnerability for Businesses? appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

That’s how Rufai Mustapha explains his mission. In one sentence, it captures the two tracks of his career: building systems as a software engineer, and giving back through teaching and mentorship.

From startups to systems

Mustapha’s journey began in Nigeria’s fast-moving startup scene, where engineers often had to be more than just coders. At a web hosting service, he designed and built websites while writing documentation for in-house tools. At a digital media outfit, he managed projects and pitched products to clients.

Later, at a film-streaming service often described as “Netflix for renting Nigerian movies,” he built and improved the core Laravel platform, configured infrastructure on Digital Ocean, and kept cross-functional teams aligned.

For him, these years were not just about learning new frameworks or delivering features. They were about understanding how software becomes a product people can trust.

“It taught me to think like a builder, not just a programmer,” he says.

Mentorship as giving back

Even while building systems, Mustapha felt the pull of teaching. At a pan-African training company, he guided more than 2,000 students into careers in web and Android development.

His team’s resources were so effective they were later adopted by a Nigerian state government. At another academy, he designed programs that boosted graduate hire rates by 10 percent.

In 2022, his dedication to giving back was recognized when Google selected him as a mentor for the Africa Developer Scholarship supported by Andela. Over several months, he worked with learners across Africa, helping them navigate difficult concepts in web and Android tracks.

Some of his mentees landed their first jobs in fintech and mobile development. “The best part is getting that message that says, ‘I got the job,’” he recalls. “It reminded me that mentorship is as important as code.”

Teaching at scale

Mentorship soon extended into classrooms far beyond Lagos. In the UK, Mustapha trained women breaking into tech. In Germany, he mentored migrants rebuilding careers in a new country.

On global platforms like LinkedIn Learning and Pluralsight, his courses have reached thousands. On freeCodeCamp, his tutorials on React and SVG mapping have been read by tens of thousands across continents.

For him, teaching is not about broadcasting knowledge but about breaking down complexity. “I want people to see that they can build too,” he says.

Speaking for ecosystems

His engineering background also pushed him into advocacy roles. At one of Africa’s leading payments companies, he overhauled API documentation and demo guides used by over 10,000 developers and merchants.

He has since spoken at more than 50 conferences across Africa and Europe, reaching thousands of developers with talks that mix live code, strategy, and storytelling.

At Write the Docs Prague, he delivered a message that resonated deeply: African startups cannot afford to ignore documentation. “Good documentation is not a luxury,” Rufai Mustapha said. “It drives adoption, it convinces investors, and it keeps ecosystems alive.”

Building communities

Beyond code and classrooms, Rufai Mustapha invests in building ecosystems. He co-hosts the EMEA chapter of Write the Docs, creating space for African engineers and writers to connect with their global peers.

He also leads Open Source Community Africa, a collective that encourages contributions from African developers to global projects.

The mission ahead

From coding startups in Lagos to mentoring through Google’s continent-wide program, from publishing courses on LinkedIn Learning and Pluralsight to speaking on world stages, Rufai Mustapha’s story keeps circling back to the same mission.

“I started out wanting to build software,” he says. “Now I see that the real measure of what I build is the people who grow because of it.”

Code is what he builds. People are why he builds.

The post Rufai Mustapha, the Software Engineer Who Loves Teaching appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Speaking with business leaders across the region, several common themes have emerged. From the urgent need to build greater resilience and reduce risk, to leveraging the power of AI and improving sustainability efforts while ensuring that investments drive value both now, and in the future – these are the interconnected trends that European business leaders will confront in 2024:

Trend 1: De-risking the enterprise

In an environment defined by volatility and geopolitical uncertainty, business leaders face increased risk across their operations.

This is driving an acute need for operational and technological interventions to reduce risk and bring stability to the enterprise, while still safeguarding agility.

Europe’s regulatory landscape is becoming increasingly complex as policymakers try to keep pace with the disruptive impact of technology.

The new Artificial Intelligence Act, for example, will establish strict rules and standards around the development and application of AI in business contexts.

This includes guardrails for general purpose AI; a total ban on AI as it relates to citizens’ rights and democratic processes; and the right for consumers to launch complaints and demand meaningful explanations regarding decisions based on AI systems.

In addition, a wave of new regulations in trade and customs throughout the region will add compliance pressure on companies already reeling from ongoing challenges related to various elements of their supply chains.

From 1 January this year, companies wishing to do business in Europe are subject to the EU Emissions Trading System that aims to establish Europe as the first climate-neutral continent; a truly admirable objective.

All this complexity requires extensive investment in sophisticated digital tools to provide greater visibility over the climate impact of the end-to-end supply chain, which brings me to my next point:

Trend 2: Supply chain resilience is not the same as agility 

As if the continued ripple effects of the pandemic on global supply chains didn’t pose enough of a challenge over the last couple of years, business leaders have also had to contend with the ongoing geopolitical conflict.

Be it re-routing of ships to avoid the Suez Canal, high-tech component shortages, or commodity price volatility on everything from food to energy – these factors, among others, create immense supply chain instability.

In response, forward-looking companies are seeking greater agility to respond to supply chain threats. A recent S&P Global report highlights the importance of technology in maximizing organizations’ chances at success with maintaining stable supply chains.

One of the key objectives of digital transformation within supply chains is the ability to improve end-to-end visibility.

However, a KPMG study found that 43% of global organizations have limited to no visibility over the performance of their tier one suppliers – an astounding statistic.

Greater visibility over supply chain processes clearly also supports wider sustainability efforts. The same KPMG study found that only 5% of supply chain emissions stem from direct manufacturing; emissions from the broader supply chain are five to ten times greater.

Digital platforms can significantly improve enterprises’ ability to collect emission data and set appropriate targets for key suppliers to collectively drive improved sustainability outcomes throughout the supply chain.

In addition, organizations will increasingly leverage the power of AI to improve supply chain management, logistics, and procurement. In fact, half of supply chain organizations are expected to invest in applications that support AI and advanced analytics capabilities in the year ahead.

Trend 3: Unlocking AI’s true business value

On the topic of AI, the year ahead will undoubtedly see more companies leverage Generative AI and AI for business to drive innovation, efficiency, and productivity.

Unsurprisingly, Gartner has predicted that Trust, Risk and Security Management in AI Models will be one of the leading tech themes for the year ahead, built on advances in model monitoring, AI application security, and privacy.

However, European businesses may be more hesitant to unleash AI on their operations. A recent PwC study found that business leaders in EMEA are far less convinced that their customers prefer to interact with AI models than their North American peers.

And considering the EU legislation already mentioned, European companies looking to incorporate AI in their business models or operating environments will need to build their use case with both compliance and privacy front and centre.

However, companies can unquestionably accelerate the value from their AI deployments by leveraging AI that is purpose built for business. Large cloud and software providers, like SAP, have invested significantly in building responsible AI into their core products. This means that customers can immediately benefit and unlock business value from their software investments.

2024 will be a pivotal year for many business leaders across EMEA – while daunting in many respects, also an incredibly exciting time to lead.

The post Business Leadership in an AI World in 2024 appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

This represents a $298 million increase compared to the same quarter in 2022. In the same period, security appliance shipments grew 22.0% year over year to 1.1 million units.

IDC completed an update to its Security Appliances taxonomy and applied these changes during the first quarter of 2023.

This resized the market by removing revenues associated with software and services that don’t qualify for reporting within the new hardware-focused market view.

The 2Q23 Security Appliance Tracker release includes new figures, Vendor Revenue (new hardware revenue), and Renewals/Firmware update revenue, which were introduced during the previous cycle, 1Q23. IDC will use the figure “Total Market Revenue” to calculate market share going forward.

The performance of the combined Unified Threat Management (UTM) and Firewall markets drove the growth of the overall market in 2Q23 with revenue growth of 9.7% compared to 2Q22.

The Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) market grew 2.3% year over year, while Content Management and Virtual Private Networks (VPN) both experienced single-digit year-over-year decline in the quarter.

“Supply chain constraints that have impacted the hardware-based markets continue to improve and IDC expects the Security Appliance market to maintain a healthy rate of growth in the years ahead as hardware-based security platforms remain a key component in a customer’s cybersecurity investment strategy,” said Carlo Dávila, research manager, Enterprise Trackers at IDC.

Regional Highlights

From a regional perspective, the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region delivered a strong performance in the second quarter of 2023, growing revenues 11.8% compared with the same quarter in 2022. The Americas region grew 10.3% with healthy grow of 8.6% in the United States and very strong results in Canada and Latin America, both showing over 20% growth in the second quarter.

Top 5 Companies, Worldwide Security Appliance Total Market Revenue, Market Share and Growth, Second Quarter of 2023 (revenue in US$ millions)

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker provides the total market size and vendor share, along with a five-year forecast, for the following technology categories (content management, IDP, traditional firewall, unified threat management, and VPN) and products (messaging security, web security, IDS, IPS, traditional firewall, unified threat management and SSL VPN).

Geographic coverage includes nine regions and 48 countries. Measurements for this tracker are in units, vendor revenue, and value.

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