AI ‘Gold Rush’ Demands Calculated Security Approaches

Organizations face a growing challenge of balancing innovation with risk as artificial intelligence expands across business functions. Security leaders need to weigh the rewards of AI-driven productivity against the risks of exposing sensitive data or enabling uncontrolled use.

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“Every time there’s a major shift in technology, there’s always a gold rush,” said Christian Reilly, field CTO at Cloudflare. Some companies have opened the floodgates to all AI applications without oversight, while others banned AI altogether out of fear. Both extremes were flawed approaches, he said.

“When we say control, it’s much more about being calculated and measured about what I’m trying to do with the technology, and then what are the implications of that – from a risk management perspective inside my organization,” Reilly said. Once organizations commit to using AI, they must ask, “What controls, what guardrails do I need to have in place to make sure that we’re protected, but also getting the value from the technology.”

In this video interview with Information Security Media Group at Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit London, Reilly also discussed:

• How shadow AI challenges exceed traditional shadow IT concerns;
• AI content scraping implications for publishers and enterprises;
• Practical approaches to enable AI workforce productivity without compromising security.

Reilly has more than 20 years of experience leading technology strategy and enterprise transformation across global organizations. He is responsible for engaging with senior technology and business executives, aligning security, performance and reliability solutions with enterprise modernization goals.