5 things we learnt at XChange Australia 2026

AI threats and opportunities and the changing threat landscape were among key lessons for partners.

CRN Australia and the channel community came together in Sydney for XChange Australia to share industry insights, hear about emerging opportunities and foster conversations about navigating rapid shifts in the Australian tech landscape.

Here are the five valuable insights partners gained at the inaugural conference.

1. AI is a threat and an opportunity

“The number one content category in our web control panel is now blocking AI tools,” according to Danny Jenkins, CEO and founder, ThreatLocker.

“We now have the ability for anyone in the world, whether they've got hacker, developer or IT skills to create vulnerabilities, phishing campaigns or malware,” Jenkins said, speaking at this week’s CRN XChange event in Sydney.

But AI isn’t all bad news. “We know there’s a lot of security issues with AI, but that also creates opportunities as well,” Jenkins said.

[PHOTOS: XChange Australia 2026]

For MSPs and MSSPs, there’s an opening to go to customers and explain how to address these new threats. AI is both the attack vector and the tool for finding vulnerabilities and managing potential attacks.

“The risks involving AI are often the same as the risks that we had before AI, just much faster,” he noted.

2. Partners are managing more devices than ever

MSPs are under immense pressure — ransomware, compliance audits, cyber insurers and rising customer expectations, but legacy endpoint management tools are slow and bloated, making it hard to keep up.

“Partners are now helping customers manage at least four devices per person,” said Paul Redding, head of MSP partnerships, NinjaOne. And the same is true with backups as data storage needs have grown.

But customer organisations aren’t going to come up with more budget to cover this expanded, more complicated array of devices. NinjaOne is pitching itself as the company that recognises partner risk is its risk.

“The tools, the services that you're using, we look at it from a risk-first perspective and understand everything you bring into the client environment is your risk and your responsibility,” he said.

3. MSPs are struggling with alert overwhelm

The volume of security alerts is growing, but hiring more talent is not the answer to address alert overwhelm. Kenny King, XDR specialist, Barracuda noted that 70 percent of those actually go untriaged and 45 percent of those are un-opened.

“If you're not able to see those events, it will hurt your organisation and cost your reputation, and your customers too,” King said.

To help strengthen cyber resilience, partners need to connect with security services that help consolidate alerts and manage events as an extension of their own team, with AI in the frontline.

“Machines do the first mile or case, and then humans do the validation and direct and decide [next steps],” he said.

4. AI readiness is not just technology, it’s governance

There’s a new teammate in the organisation, and it’s not an employee. As organisations adopt AI agents, it’s changing how work gets done, and who does the work, according to Astrid Groves, director, distribution and commercial channel, Australia, Lenovo.

To properly harness agents, organisations need to consider appropriate levels of trust. “It's about how much authority we are prepared to give AI in order to play its role in our team,” Groves explained.

For organisations and partners, readiness for AI means more than just adopting new technology. It’s the guardrails and organisational systems and processes that support safe, responsible deployment.

"We're really good at the technology aspects of that readiness. We know how to sort data, secure it and build infrastructure. The gap that we have as a technology industry is all about how do we do the governance?”

The opportunity for partners is to help write those governance rules for organisations and establish the operating models as they move through different levels of maturity.

“Who is accountable is not an option. It has to be the starting point for deploying the AI team,” she said.

5. Four forces are reshaping the threat landscape

There are four forces reshaping the landscape for organisations, particularly SMB businesses, Sam Domain, account executive, Huntress explained to the attendees.

Identity-based attacks, particularly business email compromise, are exploiting weaknesses beyond endpoint security.

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) abuse. Attackers are using RMM tools to gain access and evade detection, and Huntress has recorded a 277 percent year-on-year increase.

Ransomware is still prevalent, but the impact is shifting beyond encryption and recovery to extortion, reputational damage and regulatory consequences.

AI is acting as a “force multiplier”, making existing attacks faster, more convincing and easier to scale.

Domain stressed that organisations are facing these collective challenges, but they don’t have to be alone in their defence.

“It’s about leaning on the right partners at the right time to help increase visibility and build collective resilience,” he said.

XChange Australia was held at the Intercontinental Sydney on September 16, 2026.