The growing influence of artificial intelligence is reshaping the cybersecurity landscape, according to leading experts featured on the latest episode of The Next Five, a podcast from the Financial Times.
Titled Cyber Risk and Security in an AI World, the episode explores how AI is changing the nature of both cyber threats and defences.
Host Tom Parker is joined by Nicole Carignan, SVP of Security and AI Strategy at Darktrace, Charlie Giancarlo, CEO of Pure Storage, and Anthony Ferrante, Global Head of Cybersecurity at FTI Consulting.
Carignan highlights that “technological vulnerabilities identified by AI tools” have replaced human error as the fastest route for cyberattacks, and that “storage is a critical component” of defence strategies.
She adds: “Instead of having to worry about hundreds of thousands of alerts, humans are now focused on a few dozen truly critical ones.”
With data growing at speed, Giancarlo says enterprises face a challenge in understanding what data they have, where it’s stored, and what’s most at risk.
He points out that AI is driving a major shift in data architecture, as businesses move toward analysing data in place rather than transferring it to centralised engines.
Ferrante underlines the scale of today’s threats, noting that some organisations face over a million attacks each day. He believes AI can help by highlighting the most serious 10% of threats, giving human experts more time to focus on high-risk cases.
The panel agrees that AI is a powerful tool for cyber defence, but not a silver bullet. Human expertise remains essential. Carignan sums it up: “It’s no longer human in the loop or human out of the loop – it’s going to be a human around the loop.”
The Next Five is supported by Pure Storage and produced by the FT Commercial Department. It’s available now on all major podcast platforms.