Sovereign clouds have been all the rage over the past years, especially in Europe. Public cloud providers and vendors focusing on private clouds alike talk about it a lot. One of the major players when it comes to private clouds, VMware also chimes in. During VMware Explore Europe we sat down with Rajeev Bhardwaj, who heads VMware's CSP business, to hear more about it. What makes it different and interesting for companies to go for this VCF-based sovereign cloud option?  When it comes to sovereign clouds, it can get quite confusing very quickly. If all kinds of players on the market claim to have the perfect solution, this raises several questions. One fundamental question is what a sovereign cloud actually is. There are no real standards for it, but there are some general tenets. Think of things like local data residency, jurisdictional control, and local ownership. These form the backbone of sovereign clouds. We dive into the complexities of jurisdictional nuances. We also discuss whether we need standardized guidelines from entities like the European Commission.From a VMware perspective, VMware Cloud Foundation plays an important role in the sovereign cloud discussion. The idea behind this cloud stack is that everything that has to do with sovereign clouds can be integrated into it from the ground up. Rajeev and with him VMware see the company playing a pivotal role in the sovereign cloud discussion. Whether VMware will be and remain a major driver of the sovereign cloud remains to be seen of course. That depends on many factors. However, the concept of sovereign cloud does match Broadcom CEO Hock Tan's often-quoted statement that the future of cloud is private very well. Sovereign clouds and private clouds will share many characteristics. Especially when you add Private AI into the mix (another key target for VMware), it could very well be a big part of VMware's future.  

For this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour we sat down with Patrick Smith, Field CTO EMEA at Pure Storage. Storage continues to evolve in a world where AI is the talk of the town. What exactly is the role of storage in the modern tech landscape? And how does Pure want to contribute to this? Find out now and listen to this brand new episode.Storage may not be as important for AI workloads as compute or networking is, calling it a commodity doesn't do it justice either. Patrick sheds some light on this misconception that people may still have. He draws on insights from his discussions with customers, and explains why storage plays a crucial role for enterprises. Not only when it comes to AI, but also for building cyber resilience against threats like ransomware. The biggest part of the discussion is dedicated to the role storage plays in AI. From this perspective, Patrick dives into how solutions like Evergreen One for AI offer scalable and flexible storage-as-a-service options that streamline operations and break down infrastructure silos. We further explore how organizations can strategically manage hot, cold, and archived data to ensure optimal performance in AI projects. Additionally, we delve into the importance of vector databases and advanced data reduction algorithms, discussing the implications of data gravity challenges when balancing cloud and on-prem solutions. 

Salesforce is one of the fastest innovators in the SaaS AI space. They started with a prompt builder early in 2024. During Dreamforce they launched Agentforce to build your own automated AI Agents.  In February of 2025 major expansions are planned, adding voice capabilities to agents, coaching your sales team with an agent and the expansion to many more countries. How can Salesforce move so fast and make sure its AI doesn't hallucinate?For this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour, we talk to Adam Evans, SVP of Product for the Salesforce AI Platform. Salesforce combines many data sources with the Salesforce Data Cloud. He explains how the data is being used and how the reasoning engine loops through the data and AI queries to ensure the best consistent outcome is served to the end-user. Salesforce has built a reasoning engine that handles data and AI queries. When a query is sent to an AI modal, it doesn't always give back the right answer. Sometimes, it needs more information. The reasoning engine acts like a human to catch that. It will then search for more relevant information and feed it to the AI model. When you ask a question to a Salesforce AI Agent it may go back and forth several times to an AI model before you get an answer. Just to make sure you get the best possible answer.Salesforce creates prompts on the fly and uses RAG to feed the most relevant information to the AI models. The reasoning engine works together with the AI Trust Layer to stay compliant and mask customer data. The reasoning engine keeps the AI on a leash. The reasoning engine and the AI Trust Layer are all agnostic. With new AI models being released daily and the LLMs making giant steps forward every few months, it's hard to tell which AI model will dominate the industry in 12 or 24 months. Salesforce is taking that into account with how it has built its AI framework; they can switch to different LLMs very easily. Evans also addresses critical issues in AI data privacy, emphasizing the importance of data residency and localized computing to comply with international regulations. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to understand the future of AI technology in SaaS and how it can improve your business.

NetApp is all in on what it calls its Intelligent Data Infrastructure. More than just a fancy sounding name, it includes various fundamental components that are necessary to have to support the latest AI workloads and to combat the data silos that continue to plague organizations. Creating a robust platform approach is the way forward for all data and storage vendors. What makes NetApp's platform special? And why should NetApp be in a good position to be successful in this market? Hear all about it in this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour.For this episode, we sit down with Krish Vitaldevara. Krish is the SVP and GM for Platform at NetApp. The concept of the platform plays a crucial role in NetApp's approach to data and storage infrastructure. Without it, much of what is needed to stay relevant as a storage vendor is simply impossible. On top of that, NetApp also recently announced that its architecture will become fully disaggregated. That is a major and fundamental change for the company that also impacts its platform story. Besides the changes in the architecture, AI also has a big effect on data management and storage. Especially when it comes to vectorizing data and the database bloat that comes with it, organizations can run into some issues. It is up to vendors like NetApp to figure out how to help companies limit vectorized data growth as much as possible. All in all, there is enough to talk about with Krish, that is for sure. Together with his team, he is responsible for the development of the platform at NetApp, and the platform is where virtually all innovations converge. Listen to the conversation we had with him during the most recent edition of NetApp Insight now.

AI is rapidly transforming SaaS solutions. We talked to Brian Chess, the AI lead at NetSuite, about leveraging AI technology to improve the NetSuite platform. We discussed creating models, using RAG, prompting and the challenges of using AI models. We talk about the AI features they have developed and the challenges they encoured.In this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour we talk to Brian Chess, SVP Technology and AI at Oracle NetSuite, who went through a remarkable journey from a software developer in 1999 to leading AI initiatives today. Brian shares his firsthand experiences and insights into the advancements in AI and how NetSuite is developing AI features for its customers. He talks about multilingual capabilities, customer-specific models, Math in AI and much more. This episode promises to uncover the intricate challenges and incredible opportunities of integrating AI into financial products, making it a must-listen for AI enthusiasts and developers alike.We explore NetSuite's current AI projects, including text, image, and chart generation, as well as anomaly detection in financial reports. Exciting developments in agentic AI, Prompt Studio, and SuiteScript AI are also on the horizon. Plus, discover how NetSuite's platform, powered by a diverse customer base of 40,000, fosters unprecedented creativity and innovation. This episode is packed with valuable insights that you won't want to miss!

During this year's edition of .conf, Splunk's annual conference, we sat down with James Hodge, Chief Strategic Advisor for #Splunk EMEA. One of the main themes of #splunkconf24 was 'The SOC of the future'. That message shone through in many topics of conversation during the show. So we thought it would be interesting to have a conversation with James about this, to try and get beyond the slick marketing messages and get some insights into what this SOC of the future actually is, and what that means for organizations.In our chat, we talk about a variety of themes associated with the SOC of the future. Do we need to redefine the concept of a SOC? What are the technical prerequisites to move towards a new, more modern SOC. How should organizations prepare themselves for it? One of the key tenets in what James tells us is that a data-informed approach is the way forward. Without it, mitigating #risks and streamlining #compliance is and will always be a pipe dream. That in itself isn't very shocking, basically everybody says that nowadays. Splunk (and Cisco) claim they can actually deliver on that too. Obviously AI plays a part in this, but also the integrations between the two players. Integrating IT operations with security also bolsters digital resilience.A SOC of the future enables #cybersecurity to transition from an insurance policy to a key business enabler. James shares his vision of how organizations can leverage data-driven strategies to not only enhance security but also drive innovation and maintain robust governance. We delve into practical ways CISOs can meet dual expectations and the significance of shared KPIs to measure the ROI of security investments, promoting a collaborative and flexible approach across all organizational levels.Listen to this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour to learn more about the SOC of the future, and the role it plays in innovation and security operations. Don't miss this insightful conversation on shaping the future of cybersecurity and operational resilience.

Both junior and senior security analysts encounter frustrating challenges with threat hunting, making it hard to really make it an integral part of daily SOC operations. How can we make things easier and less ad hoc for them? We sit down with Albert Caballero and Adriana Corona from SentinelOne to discuss this in depth. At its recent OneConnect event in the Benelux, representatives from #SentinelOne gave keynotes on different topics that relate to each other in different ways. On the one hand there was a keynote from Albert Caballero, Field CISO at SentinelOne, about #threathunting. On the other, there was a keynote about (among other things) Purple AI, by Adriana Corona, Director of Products for AI at the same company. As it turns out, AI can and will have fundamental implications for threat hunting, and for #cybersecurity as a whole.  Besides the somewhat conceptual impact of AI on threat hunting, Adriana and Albert delve into the emerging use of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). It's not only AI that helps humans, but also the other way around. Expert-created threat intelligence enhances AI effectiveness and accuracy. Another big topic in the conversation is the pivotal importance of #transparency and #trust in #AI systems. We contrast the contextual precision of specialized AI with more generic platforms. Transparency of how AI works is absolutely vital for cybersecurity purposes. That's the only way to reach reliable decision-making in cybersecurity. There are challenges too, for sure, so we also talk about how to tackle those.All in all this is another must-listen for people and organizations looking to optimize their #security posture and stack, by using AI or in other ways. And let's be honest, who isn't in 2024. 

The title of this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour is a (perhaps somewhat rhetorical) question Don Schuerman, the CTO of #Pegasystems asks the audience during #PegaWorld Inspire, Pega's annual flagship event. Sander sat down with him at the show to discuss how statistical AI and GenAI can help find an answer.During this conversation, Don and Sander discuss many facets of what drives #innovation. For example, the outcome of some research suggests that GenAI not only helps generate hype for #GenAI, but also causes an increase in adoption for 'good old-fashioned' statistical AI. In other words, innovation in one part can have unintended but good side-effects on other parts.Other topics that they discuss is how companies like Pega, but also others in the industry can and should help organizations build innovation around use-cases that haven't even been properly defined yet. That's one of the key issues that needs to be addressed today. We're at a stage where a lot of it is about pragmatic and practical use of AI, but that's only possible if you have a good idea of what is pragmatic and practical. Apart from the general AI discussion, Don and Sander also get into some of the new developments at Pega. They talk about things like KnowledgeBuddy, an example of #RAG, or Retrieval-Augmented Generation), but also Pega GenAI #Blueprint. The latter of the two has the potential to up-end the development of specific apps in organizations. You just tell it to build you an application for, say, loan applications, and it does so in a couple of steps. Give this new episode a listen right now, and get valuable insights into innovations in software development in general, and in Pega's platform in particular. 

Keeping bad guys out is always better than trying to detect breaches after they have happened. Many security vendors seem to have given up on that idea, however. That is, there's a lot of focus on an 'assume breach' attitude nowadays, not so much on 'assume our defenses will hold'. There are a lot of reasons why this is the case, reasons we have gone into at length in earlier episodes of this podcast series. But what does a prevention-first mindset look like in 2024? Listen to this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour to find out.  To better understand a prevention-first approach, Check Point is one of the obvious vendors to chat with. It's one of a very select group of security suppliers that still holds this position. As one of the inventors of the firewall around 30 years ago, this position makes perfect sense of course. Still, it's quite rare nowadays to hear a company take this stance so clearly, without losing sight of the necessity of things like EDR and XDR in its platform too.  For this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour, Sander sits down with Itai Greenberg, Chief Strategy Officer at Check Point, at RSA Conference in San Francisco. They discuss in depth what it means to have a prevention-first approach, not only from the point of view of Check Point, but also what it means for its customers. Especially in a world in which AI-driven cyber threats are on the rise and will continue to be on the rise for some time, (AI-driven) prevention is more important than ever, he states.Besides a prevention-first approach, Itai and Sander discuss many more things. The challenge for customers of how to integrate various security solutions into one security stack is one. More collaboration between security vendors is absolutely crucial to achieve this. Another interesting discussion in this episode is the one on the risks posed by vulnerabilities in open-source and third-party software. All in all, there are quite a few interesting nuggets of information on the security landscape as a whole, Check Point's role in it and organizations' approaches to cybersecurity in this episode.

Organizations invest $200 billion globally in IT security. However, data breaches and ransomware attacks are still rampant. How can that be? What does this say about the impact of all those investments? We discuss these and other topics with Filip Verloy, Field CTO at Rubrik, one of the big players in this space. At RSA Conference earlier this year, we recorded a number of episodes for our relatively new Techzine Talks on Tour podcast series. Data security is without a doubt one of the big themes for organizations to get right. As is the case for virtually all other components of cyber security, it turns out to be quite a daunting task to do so.   According to Verloy, one of the key things to do as an organization is to assume a so-called 'assume breach' attitude. This is especially important when it comes to the data of an organization, as that usually is very valuable. One of the trends Verloy signals in this respect is that attackers are shifting from traditional encryption methods to sophisticated data exfiltration techniques. That fundamentally changes the game. It shifts the focus from prevention to resilience, among other things. Tune in to this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour to hear much more about what's happening in data security. It's a very important topic that should be near the top of the list of priorities for organizations. Especially with AI and new regulations like NIS2 being added to the equation, effective security posture management is of paramount importance.    

Every software company globally is focusing on integrating AI into its solutions. ServiceNow has built one of the biggest platforms and workflow engines today. We talked to Pat Casey, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of DevOps at ServiceNow, to learn how ServiceNow is building AI into its platform. ServiceNow has chosen to unify its AI team into a single technology group, ensuring AI will not be the next add-on but a core component of the ServiceNow platform. Casey takes us through the transformative impact of this alignment and how organisations can enhance workflows and deliver superior customer experiences. Dive deep into the Generative AI Controller and understand how it empowers customers to build AI solutions using various large language models, emphasizing the critical role of data in AI training and deployment.We talk about many ServiceNow platform AI features like playbook generation and prompt engineering that are designed to save time and empower users. Learn about the text-to-playbook feature, which allows even less experienced users to create effective workflows, and a customizable prompt builder that enhances engagement across various applications. We even discuss ServiceNow's switch from MariaDB to Postgres and modern database management. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in ServiceNow and AI integration into platforms. Whether you are a ServiceNow customer or not, it is packed with expert knowledge. Listen now to this latest Techzine Talks on Tour.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) can be very complex and time-consuming. A lot will change with the introduction of generative AI; processes can be easily automated and made more efficient. We see the introduction of LLMs for analyzing data and processes and even offering solutions for upcoming problems. In this Techzine Talks episode, we talk to Nicky Tozer, vice president of Oracle NetSuite.Tozer gives insights into NetSuite's innovations, like text-enhance, which streamlines the creation of sales orders, customer campaigns, and support reports, offering substantial time savings. Learn from real-world implementations like Bloom and Wild, who leverage AI to minimize waste and bolster sustainability. Customer feedback is a crucial driver in refining AI for future ERP applications.Our conversation also delves into the critical aspects of AI integration within NetSuite, focusing on data security and privacy. Additionally, we underscore the pivotal role of NetSuite partners in crafting AI solutions specifically tailored for small to medium-sized businesses with limited IT resources. Looking ahead, there’s exciting potential for these partners to introduce their own models. Listen to this episode where we explore AI’s future in ERP with Nicky Tozer.

This week's episode of Techzine Talks on Tour is a rather special one, even if we do say so ourselves. At the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Sander Almekinders from Techzine sat down with Anand Prakash from SentinelOne. They chatted about how he, a white hat hacker, built one of the most advanced cloud security platforms in the industry. Well worth a listen, so go ahead and click on the play button below.In their discussion, Anand and Sander touch on a variety of different topics. Of course there's the story about how Anand became an ethical hacker. This story itself is a reminder that grasping the opportunities when they arrive is more important than trying to plan your whole life beforehand.Being an ethical hacker gave Anand a distinct advantage when he starting thinking about setting up his own company. It all starts with the attacking mindset that a hacker has. That mindset became visible in what PingSafe, the company he founded and headed, offered. SentinelOne saw potential in PingSafe's offerings and decided to snap up the company. PingSafe's product has now become Singularity Cloud Native Security.Tune in now to hear all about how a guy from India went from exposing flaws in Facebook to developing a cutting edge Attack Engine to secure cloud environments. You won't regret spending thirty minutes on it.

During Cisco Live last June in Las Vegas, we had the opportunity to sit down with Tom Casey, SVP and General Manager at Splunk. We asked him all about how he thinks the portfolios from Splunk and Cisco work together, and reinforce each other. How does Splunk make Cisco better, and vice versa? The acquisition of Splunk by Cisco was big news near the end of 2023. After closing the acquisition somewhere last March, the teams at both companies really got to work and already delivered some integrations. Observability underpins a lot of what Cisco has done over the past few years. It has an impact on its security business, but also its networking business and obviously its AppDynamics business. Without observability, all the talk by Cisco about Digital Experience Assurance would not be possible, or at least a lot less confident. Making sense of a crazy heterogeneous spaceWith the addition of Splunk to the fold, Cisco now has fundamentally different data to add to its Full Stack Observability approach. One of the key talking points of this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour is what this means, and what companies can get out of this. Tom Casey breaks down the essence of observability, detailing its critical layers. In addition, we talk about the necessity of a unified data platform that curtails alert overload while ensuring consistent insights across both traditional and modern cloud environments. Listen to this episode if you want to gain a better understanding of how combining Cisco’s data to Splunk’s data can transform raw data into actionable intelligence. According to Casey, we need fundamentally better insights to deal with the "crazy mixed up heterogeneous space" that a company's infrastructure and insights have become. The conversation isn't limited to observability, though. We also touch on how Splunk and Cisco can advance the state of the art in networking and security. Listen to this new episode now. You won't be disappointed.

This week's episode of Techzine Talks on Tour was recorded several months ago. At the HP Amplify Partner Conference in Las Vegas we sat down with Ian Pratt, Global Head of Security for Personal Systems at HP, to talk about the changes and challenges in that department. One of the key differentiators HP PCs bring to bear is the so-called Endpoint Security Chip, or ESC. We discuss the role of this piece of custom silicon in some detail. In addition, we also also focus on the more general role endpoints like the ones HP manufactures and sells play in the security stack as a whole. It's a rather complex stack in 2024. Even a big company like HP has to collaborate with the likes of Intel and AMD to improve security of its devices. How do you secure the endpoint?Just to be sure, and perhaps state the obvious, protecting endpoints is very important. Over 70% of breaches start at the endpoint. HP has a big responsibility to make sure these are as secure as possible. It does this not only by means of innovations in hardware, also software and services play an important role in this. In our discussion with Pratt, we'll also touch on the importance of platform-based security approaches like XDR and the rising threat of sophisticated phishing attacks generated by AI.What about the role of quantum in securing endpoints?The next part of our conversation deals with the future of cybersecurity. That is cybersecurity in a quantum computing world. Together with Pratt, we explore the steps HP is taking to ensure PCs are quantum-resistant. It's important to understand the risks posed by quantum computers to traditional cryptographic signatures and discuss the implementation of new, robust algorithms. Pratt offers insights into preparing for this next leap in technology, including how organizations can transition to quantum-resistant cryptography and meet emerging governmental mandates. Tune in now for what we think is a very interesting discussion about the role of the endpoint in cyber security.

In this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour, we take an inside-out look at cyber security. That is, we discuss challenges and developments a cyber security company faces. We do this with Adam Marrè, Chief Information Security Officer at Arctic Wolf. We also discuss current trends, obviously AI and the rise of deepfakes. As the CISO of cyber security firm Arctic Wolf, Marrè has an interesting outlook on this. He's not necessarily in the business of selling things, and doesn't do a lot of customer meetings.  His main focus is to keep Arctic Wolf's platform safe. That's extremely important, but also necessary if we do a quick search on Techzine for zero-days, breaches en leaks in cybersecurity software. Marrè's job is to make sure that Arctic Wolf never gets on those pages.Basic hygiene still challenge number oneTo a certain extent the problems of the market and the potential issues that Arctic Wolf could run into don't differ that much. It all comes down to taking a risk-based approach to cyber security. In such an approach it's the basic stuff that still causes chaos at companies. Things like patching and managing identities are at the basis of a lot of problems in the world. It's crucial everyone does more to tackle this. A company's leadership plays a critical role in in defining an organization's risk tolerance and how outsourcing security services can be both a boon and a challenge. Marrè further emphasizes that while outsourcing can strengthen a small team, it doesn't replace the necessity for internal vigilance and a deep understanding of an organization's unique risk landscape.Finally, Marrè shares his insights on the immediate threats posed by deep fakes and misinformation, and the evolving landscape of AI-driven attacks and defenses. We discuss how AI has the potential to significantly enhance defensive capabilities by leveraging existing tools and data more effectively. Listen to this new episode right now!

For this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour, we sat down with Shaun O'Meara, CTO at Mirantis, to discuss the state of Kubernetes, its challenges, maturity and what the impact of AI is on it.Disclaimer regarding the text below: we let the built-in AI functionality of Buzzsprout generate a summary of the conversation Sander from Techzine had with Shaun from Mirantis. This is not because we're too lazy to write our own summary, but part of what you might call some research. Do you think it gives a good impression of the conversation? We would love to hear your thoughts on this, so please reach out if you have an opinion on this. How will AI revolutionize Kubernetes and cloud-native development? In our latest episode, we uncover the transformative power of AI, particularly in infrastructure management and machine learning. Recorded live at KubeCon Europe, the episode kicks off with an exploration of how AI is reshaping Kubernetes, making this complex system more accessible and efficient. We also highlight some groundbreaking open-source contributions that are driving these changes, giving you a front-row seat to the future of IT infrastructure.Ever wondered what it takes to build a robust Kubernetes platform? We dive into the nitty-gritty of platform engineering, breaking down what it means to create a valuable, secure, and efficient environment for developers. Discover how adding supportive components and development acceleration tools can make a world of difference. Listen as we discuss the progress Kubernetes has made towards becoming as ubiquitous as Linux and the balanced approach that Mirantis employs to keep platform engineering both opinionated and flexible, focusing on lifecycle management and mature project curation.What does the future hold for IT infrastructure and AI integration? We explore emerging trends, from VM replacement to the rise of edge computing. Hear our insights on the strategic considerations organizations must weigh to modernize their digital infrastructure without losing control. As AI continues to evolve, we'll discuss its growing role at the edge and the revolutionary impact of GPUs, all while highlighting the broader implications for various sectors. Tune in for a comprehensive and thought-provoking discussion on the current and future landscape of AI and Kubernetes.

For this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour we sat down with Jeetu Patel, EVP of Collaboration and Security at Cisco at RSA Conference earlier this month. He has a rather positive outlook on the ongoing war organizations wage with attackers. We discuss why that is in this deep-dive into security architecture and infrastructure.According to Patel, we live in an era of abundance, also when it comes to modernizing security infrastructure. With adversaries growing increasingly sophisticated, he explains why a cutting-edge overhaul of security infrastructure is not just necessary but urgent. However, it's also possible now. All of the components necessary for this overhaul are present. AI is an important part of this, but there is so much more that plays a role. We now have hardware acceleration, self-qualified patching and eBPF at our disposal. These components make it possible to significantly fortify the security infrastructure, according to him.2024 is going to be a huge year for cybersecurity in general, and Cisco in particular, according to Patel. Listen to this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour now to learn all about why that is.

This brand new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour features a discussion with Mike Beckley, the CTO of Appian. Beckley's company has a very clear and in general common sense approach to AI. Preparing your company for the AI Economy isn't necessarily hard, he argues. The key components are all available. You just need to implement them correctly.During our conversation with Beckley, we talk about how real the AI Economy is already. More importantly, though, we discuss what is needed for organizations to be part of it. Appian plays an interesting role in this process. A champion of what it calls private AI, the company also recognizes that public AI has merit in several use-cases. So companies like Appian work hard on tying the two 'types' of AI together. Something along the lines of the collaboration agreement that Appian has with AWS (Amazon Bedrock, to be precise) is where the AI industry as a whole gravitates towards. Another topic in the AI discussion is how you ensure that data is being made available to workloads that utilize it. In other words, how do companies get their data foundation in order? Some sort of data fabric (or something along those lines) is part of the solution, Beckley argues.Finally, Appian itself also needs to change its internal architecture to a certain extent in order to keep up with AI advances in general. We conclude our conversation with Beckley by talking about EPEx, or Elastic Process Execution. That should give significant performance improvements to Appian's own processes.Listen to this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour now!  

Unlock the secrets of integrating AI in enterprise organisations with Jayesh Govindarajan, the SVP AI at Salesforce. Many organizations are challenged how to fit genAI into their business. Salesforce is helping it's customers by offering many integrated genAI features, but it also gives it's customers the power to build their own AI features. Govindarjan takes us behind the scenes of Salesforce's AI journey, revealing the complex innovation of embedding AI features that elevate the user experience. We talk about AI deployment, the pivotal role of contextual data, and why developers are turning into prompt engineers to exploit the vast capabilities of large language models. We also discuss the role of the CoPilot chatbot, which is something that many users don't favor. How does Salesforce expect chatbots to become more popular?Salesforce created many AI-ready features on its platform. Copilot plays a significant role, but there are also many AI-specific features that can be activated by a click of a button. For example, an auto-generated reply on a support ticket. Users on the platform also have the option to use Copilot at any given moment. Organizations that want to use their own models or build their own AI features can use the new Einstein1 Studio. Salesforce also launched the prompt builder, which helps users build effective prompts in many ways, which can be really hard. According to Govindarjan, they have made a lot of progress in making prompt engineering a lot easier. Salesforce is one of the companies that already made huge steps in AI, but it believes it's only at step one or two of ten step journey. 

For this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour we sat down with Alex Stamos during RSA Conference. Stamos is Chief Trust Officer at SentinelOne, and - among other things - also a Stanford professor and former Chief Security Officer of Facebook. We took a deep dive with him into the concept of trust.Trust is a key component of our digital lives. It plays a role in our personal as well as in our business lives. Organizations need to know who they can trust before entering into a relationship with a vendor. At least, that's how it should be. In practice, though, a lot of time is wasted on things like vendor risk management. The existence of vendor risk management and its accompanying forms in itself isn't a bad thing, according to Stamos. However, thinking that potential problems with some kind of product or system that is based upon tens or hundreds of millions of lines of code are going to be solved by someone filling out some kind of spreadsheet is far from realistic.Know who to trustOne of the key questions we discuss during our conversation is how organizations can know who to trust. That's a big question that deserves a substantial discussion. We go into the role a big player like Microsoft plays in this aspect. Should you let the company that builds Windows be responsible for your cybersecurity as well? And how can a cybersecurity company prove to their customers that they're worthy of their trust? In other words, how do you provide enough transparency?Another topic we discuss during this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour is how AI will impact the cybersecurity industry. Not only from a trust perspective, but also from an architectural and process perspective. Stamos is of the opinion that the world moves towards automated cybersecurity, thanks in large part to AI. This will give the defenders an advantage over the attackers, at least for a while. Automation will be crucial, because of the sheer amount of defending organizations need to do. This also implies, according to Stamos, that the industry as a whole will have to move towards a centrally orchestrated way of gathering and analyzing data. Only then will it be possible for organizations to properly defend themselves. There's obviously a self-serving component to this statement, but we think fundamentally Stamos isn't wrong. It's a good concept to discuss, that's for sure. Listen to this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour now!

The human is often seen as the weak link in cybersecurity. You can have all the security tooling in the world, but if attackers target people they can still get in. People in general, so also employees of organizations, need to be made aware of how to spot these types of attacks. In other words, we need Human Detection and Response, i.e. HDR just as much as we need MDR and XDR. KnowBe4 has been founded to address the challenges organizations have with educating their workforce on cybersecurity. During RSA Conference 2024, we sat down with founder and CEO Stu Sjouwerman. We discuss the current state of affairs in security awareness inside organizations. A central theme for KnowBe4 nowadays is something they call adaptive human risk management. This is the foundation for a risk-based approach to cybersecurity through a human lens. You could see this as an extension of the many examples of risk-based cybersecurity approaches you can find in other areas of cybersecurity. The idea is to create a healthy security culture, alongside a good security stack.There's more to it than security awareness trainingWe don't really discuss 'traditional' security awareness training all that much during our conversation. That's more or less table stakes now, even though there's still room for improvement on that front. However, KnowBe4 is also looking into new areas. Its acquisition of Egress is a clear example of this. Egress is a company that focuses on e-mail security. There already was a tight integration between the two players, which will become even tighter after the acquisition.The fact that KnowBe4 ventures into the area of e-mail security may seem a bit strange at first sight. After all, KnowBe4 never was a 'traditional' security technology company, right? But if you factor into the equation that e-mail security is still the number one attack vector and that there a very strong human element to it, it actually makes perfect sense. At the end of our conversation, we also touch on the role AI plays and is going to play in cybersecurity from a security awareness perspective. We zoom in on the rise of deepfakes. These keep getting better and better, so are harder and harder to detect for humans at the other end of them. Sjouwerman recognizes this is going to be a serious challenge, but he's also rather optimistic that common sense (and some technology of course) will eventually win this battle too.We hope you enjoy this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour.