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Can Agentic AI Redefine Cyber Defense? Exclusive Insights From Jon Ramsey, GM/VP, Google Security Operations
Cybersecurity is at a tipping point, where the rise of agentic AI is reshaping how enterprises detect, respond, and defend against threats. Jon Ramsey, GM/VP of Google Security Operations, is driving Google Cloud’s push to integrate AI-powered defense, Mandiant expertise, and Zero Trust principles into a unified security strategy.
In this exclusive conversation with Analytics Insight, Ramsey unpacks how Google is closing critical gaps in technology, talent, and mindset, and why the transformation from traditional SOCs to agentic SOCs could mark the future of cyber resilience.
At the Google Cloud Security Summit, we saw big announcements around agentic AI, Mandiant integration, and Zero Trust. What’s the real breakthrough you’re putting on the table with these initiatives?
In speaking with customers, we recognize the challenges that may come with balancing AI innovation with security. Our goal with our latest announcements is to help customers secure their AI initiatives while leveraging AI to enhance their organization's security.
We’re achieving this through new agentic AI security capabilities, such as those in our AI Protection solution, which enable customers to discover and secure AI assets, as well as manage AI threats. We’re also empowering defenders with AI through the Alert Investigation agent, which is now in preview. For customers seeking expert guidance on securely adopting AI while mitigating risk, we have announced expanded Mandiant AI Security Consulting services.
In a crowded cloud security market, what differentiates Google’s approach in delivering trust and resilience at scale?
Google Cloud offers powerful security advantages to help organizations innovate securely with AI. It starts with our secure-by-design cloud platform, which enables customers to build and deploy workloads, including AI applications, confidently.
Our global visibility into the threat landscape and frontline threat intelligence is continually integrated into our products and services, enabling customers to identify and mitigate risk proactively. Additionally, Mandiant experts provide critical support before, during, and after attacks, all supercharged with Google AI to boost security team productivity.
How will agentic AI transform the way SOCs detect and respond to threats in real time? Is this the end of traditional security ops?
Agentic AI represents a pivotal shift for security operations, allowing intelligent agents to automate routine tasks and enhance human decision-making. This evolution will transform traditional SOCs into agentic SOCs, where connected agents execute semi-autonomous and autonomous workflows. We are actively developing these tools, with the Alert Investigation agent already in preview.
This agent autonomously enriches events, analyzes CLIs, and builds process trees based on Mandiant's best practices, drastically reducing manual effort and improving response times. This will enable security teams to focus on complex investigations and strategic challenges, maximizing human expertise.
Most firms chase compliance, not resilience. How do you push boards to invest in real AI security?
A robust security posture is the natural outcome of a security-first approach to compliance. Conversely, a compliance-first approach to security offers no such guarantee of true security.
As businesses pivot towards AI-driven transformation to enhance customer engagement, market competitiveness, and investor returns, the imperative to secure these AI capabilities becomes intrinsically linked to the enterprise's success.
Translating AI's profound impact on business outcomes in this way will help boards to understand that robust security is not just advisable, but absolutely critical.
Where do you see the biggest gaps in today’s enterprise security—technology, talent, or mindset? How is Google Cloud working to address these issues?
In today’s enterprise security landscape, we see gaps across all three areas: technology, talent, and mindset. On the talent side, the persistent and growing cybersecurity skills gap is a major challenge.
To address this gap, we see many organizations relying on a fragmented collection of disparate security tools that don't work together effectively. This can result in a lack of visibility across their environment, alert fatigue, and slow response times, leading to a reactive mindset.
Google Cloud is working to close these gaps through a multi-pronged approach enabled by AI. Through our integrated suite of security solutions and the new capabilities announced at the Security Summit, we’re helping security teams automate threat detection and response, so defenders can focus on higher-priority tasks and ultimately develop a proactive security posture.
