Kathy Gibson reports from Synology Solution Day 2026 in Cape Town – As AI adoption accelerates, enterprises are increasingly looking for ways to harness AI-driven productivity while maintaining control over their data, security and operational costs.
During her session at Synology Solution Day 2026 in Cape Town, Mirian Lin, Account Manager at Synology, introduced delegates to the AI-powered workplace enabled by Synology Office Suite.
She points out that businesses are facing two big challenges as they embrace AI transformation.
“The first is cybersecurity,” Lin explains. “While third-party hacks have doubled, AI is making them harder for users to spot.
“The second challenge is rising and unpredictable productivity costs. As businesses adopt more AI-powered tools, managing subscription fees and long-term operational expenses is becoming increasingly difficult.”
In response, businesses are increasingly considering on-premises productivity solutions that provide greater control over data ownership, secure collaboration and long-term costs.
The Synology Office Suite is a private cloud solution that helps organisations increase efficiency, security and productivity.
Because the applications are all housed on one Synology platform the business stays in complete control of all data, Lin explains. More than 70,000 businesses are already using Synology Office Suite, with over 18 million individual users worldwide.
Collaboration
Synology Office Suite enables real-time collaboration across documents, spreadsheets and presentations. With support for multiple file formats, teams can work seamlessly across different document types and collaborate on files within a unified platform.
Communication
Modern businesses rely on email, messaging, calendars and online meetings to keep teams connected. Synology brings these essential communication and collaboration tools together within a unified private cloud platform.
Recognizing the challenges of email migration, Synology MailPlus provides migration tools designed to help businesses transition their email services securely and efficiently.
“It feels familiar from day one,” Lin explains.
Synology ChatPlus and Synology Meet further support team communication through private, on-premises messaging and video conferencing. With integrated AI capabilities, these tools help streamline everyday communication while keeping organizational data under control.
As part of an integrated platform, Synology Office Suite brings messaging, meetings and webinars together, simplifying communication and collaboration across teams.
“This helps people to stay on top of their work while transcripts and summaries are stored securely in one place,” Lin says.
AI is built in
Businesses want smart AI that they can control. But as Lin explains, AI transformation is not an overnight event.
“AI transformation is a journey,” she says. “Solutions like Synology Office Suite help businesses improve productivity, unlock the value of their organizational data and gradually explore more advanced automation through agentic AI.
“With Synology Office Suite, you can turn data into a searchable AI knowledge base.”
Practical examples include AI-powered translation in Synology ChatPlus, automated meeting transcription and summaries in Synology Meet, and AI-assisted email drafting and refinement in Synology MailPlus.
Meanwhile, Semantic Search enables users to find relevant files more intuitively by searching based on meaning and context, rather than relying solely on exact keywords.