John Ainsworth on ROI

You can't spell Ainsworth without AI. It's a small linguistic coincidence, but it's also a neat shorthand for the conversation I had with John Ainsworth, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Application and Data Platforms at Progress Software, who flew into Sydney last week to deliver the keynote at the OpenEdge World Tour 2026 at the Sofitel Sydney Wentworth. The full article can be read here: https://itwire.com/business-it-news/data/video-interview-progress-software-s-john-ainsworth-on-agentic-rag-mcp-and-why-bypassing-business-logic-is-fraught-with-incredible-risk Progress had slotted Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane onto a multi-city tour that's already passed through Oslo, Warsaw, Zurich, Leuven and Utrecht. The Australian leg jumped the queue ahead of Singapore, Tokyo and Bangalore, and Ainsworth says it came down to timing and the appetite of local customers. "We've done a number of events around the rest of Asia Pac over the last couple of months, and I hadn't had the opportunity to come and spend some time with our OpenEdge customers, particularly in Australia," Ainsworth said. "This seemed like a great opportunity,” which gave attendees the ability to hear what the company has achieved and delivered, and visibility into what comes next. For iTWire readers who run ABL shops, OpenEdge databases, ERP backends, banking cores and logistics systems where downtime is counted in dollars per second, this visit matters. Progress is going all-in on AI, agentic systems and the Model Context Protocol. Ainsworth is here to show Australian customers how it fits with code they've trusted for decades. The rest of the interview can be seen in the video above, and the detailed accompanying article that continues this text can be read here: https://itwire.com/business-it-news/data/video-interview-progress-software-s-john-ainsworth-on-agentic-rag-mcp-and-why-bypassing-business-logic-is-fraught-with-incredible-risk