I like to tinker about. There have been times when this tinkering has resulted in a ‘broken’ website. At those times, my favorite word to throw at the server support staff is ‘roll-back’. This means that they should kindly please restore the website to the last version. The version that looked good before I broke it. Thank goodness for back-up, right?
But what happens when back-ups fail? When the versions that you have on hand disappears? For some systems, it could mean scrambling to find the oldest known working version, be that three days, three weeks, or three months old. The impact of this to your business could vary from mild to disastrous. If your business relies heavily on the lost data and code, you could end up closing down your business like Knights of Old (KNP) had to do in 2023 when hackers locked them out of their system (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2gx28815wo). They could not afford the cost of the ransom for restoring the data and processes that hackers had accessed. As a result, their fleet of 500 lorries was not able to operate and 700 people lost their jobs. The company , which was one and a half century old was forced to shut down.
A more recent data loss was experienced in April 2026 by PocketOS when they decided to embrace AI in an environment where some of the safety rails where overly-dependent on AI (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/29/claude-ai-deletes-firm-database). Their AI agent wiped out the pre-existing scripts and replaced them with newer, less effective scripts. In nine seconds, their production data and associated backups were wiped out. The agent later revealed that it operated outside of the directives that it had been given as a base. This is a lesson for all of those who press ‘Enter’ and expect that their AI prompting skills will provide them with the perfect outcome. What this tells me is that the AI game we are in is not “I, Robot”, and Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws Of Robotics” may just be overlooked in the short term-because deleting functional backups surely counts as harm to humans? Your AI agent will own up to its failures, and in a near-apology, will tell you exactly what it did wrong. However, your data and functioning scripts could be long gone.
So, what eventually happened to PocketOS? Well, at first, their car rental business was brought to a stand-still. Customers were at a loss as to how to access the vehicles they had rented online due to recent records being inaccessible. Luckily for PocketOS, they did not lose their business like KNP did. Instead they had to work overtime, using backups to restore the data and scripts to reconstruct a working solution.
For those whole primary business is freight-related, I hope this has given you some food for thought. If you are relying on suppliers to provide these services for you, maybe have a chat with them this week and find out what kind of backup solutions they have in place. While you’re discussing the risks of AI agents with them, give them a copy of “Managing IT Suppliers : A Practical Guide To Vendor Management (https://exclusivebooks.co.za/products/9781041104155)” to inspire them on the multiple ways they can work with their suppliers and improve their processes. This way, they can give you better service. In the long run, everybody wins.
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