CXOTalk

Pradeep Mannakkara (CIO) and Ben Mayrides (CISO) of Cvent explain how they govern AI agents at scale across their 5,500-person organization, which now has over 6,000 agents in production. In this fireside chat recorded at a Glean event in NYC, they walk through the AWARE framework developed by Glean's Work AI Institute with Databricks and Palo Alto Networks, and describe the practical tradeoffs of moving fast while managing risk.

The conversation covers agent identity, observability, cultural adoption, CIO/CISO dynamics, and what enterprise-grade AI governance looks like in practice.

You'll discover:
✅ Why traditional IAM and observability controls fail in agentic architectures where agents reason, delegate, and act autonomously
✅ How Cvent deliberately encouraged 6,000 agent creations to build AI fluency before layering in moderation and metrics
✅ The AWARE framework's five pillars: identity, context, guardrails, risk scoring, and ecosystem observability
✅ Why "risk is too high" is never the final answer, only "risk is too high for now"
✅ How Cvent filters AI demand through ROI gates before projects reach security review
✅ Why replacing gut-feel security objections with shared criteria moves the CISO from gatekeeper to business partner
✅ The sandbox-first approach that separates experimentation from production deployment
✅ Why SOC 2 control criteria for AI agents are likely within 18 to 24 months

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Introduction and the AWARE framework
0:34 Core challenges of agent governance
2:43 What agents do for us and to us
4:36 Applying the AWARE framework in practice
7:09 Choosing platforms with built-in controls
9:25 Making governance a cultural shift
11:51 Earning trust through deliberate risk decisions
13:49 Replacing gut reactions with shared criteria
15:20 Managing the CIO/CISO tension
18:54 Shared language for hard tradeoffs
22:01 Go/no-go decisions are never one and done
24:48 Advice for putting AWARE into practice
26:38 Scaling to 6,000 agents

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💬 Show notes: https://www.cxotalk.com/episode/ai-agent-governance-inside-the-glean-aware-framework-with-cvents-cio-and-ciso

🎙️ ABOUT CXOTALK
CXOTalk features unfiltered conversations with C-suite executives from major companies about AI, digital transformation, and business strategy. Hosted by Michael Krigsman.

Episode 913 | Recorded March 10, 2026

#CXOTalk #AIGovernance #AIAgents #CISO #CIO #EnterpriseAI #AgenticAI #AWAREFramework #AICompliance #CyberSecurity

Bill Briggs, CTO of Deloitte, shares findings and advice for Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from the 2026 TechTrends report: 93% of enterprise AI spending goes to technology and tooling, while only 7% of funding goes to culture, change management, and learning. Briggs explains why this imbalance drives failed pilots and runaway costs, and what leaders should do about it.

📌 KEY POINTS
-- Your AI spending ratio is upside down
Enterprises allocate 93% of AI budgets to technology and tooling, while devoting only 7% to culture, change management, and workforce learning. Leaders who invest first in simplifying processes from first principles, before adding AI, consistently produce the strongest returns.

-- Frontline trust in AI sits at 6.7%, and it's costing you
C-suite executives report 70% trust in AI, while entry-level workers register only 6.7%, creating an inverted value chain where the people closest to broken processes stay silent. Organizations can close this gap by declaring intentions upfront and making it safe for workers to experiment openly, rather than hiding behind personal AI tools.

-- Measure outcomes, not agent headcount
Companies broadcasting "tens of thousands of agents" substitute effort metrics for evidence of value; if real business results existed, those numbers would be the headline. Tie every AI initiative to specific operational and financial metrics and kill pilots that result in press releases but no movement that benefits shareholders and employees.

YOU'LL DISCOVER:
✅ Why applying AI to an inefficient process "weaponizes inefficiency" and drives costs through the roof
✅ How trust in AI drops from 70% at the C-suite to 6.7% at the frontline, and why this inverted gap blocks real value
✅ Why hospitals are putting robots on org charts and holding naming competitions for AI coworkers
✅ The specific governance frameworks enterprises need for a workforce of AI agents (modeled on the HR lifecycle)
✅ How inference costs create sticker shock and when to shift from cloud to dedicated hardware
✅ Why Briggs says the CIO's most important skill is now storytelling, not systems architecture
✅ What "success theater" looks like and how to spot it in your own organization
✅ Why 99% of enterprises are fundamentally transforming their IT organizations right now

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Deloitte's CTO: Spend less on technology
0:20 The 93/7 AI spending imbalance
3:59 Why a technologist argues against more tech investment
5:43 State of enterprise AI: 30% reach production scale
8:05 Treating AI deployment like onboarding a coworker
10:29 AI itself means nothing without culture change
13:14 Redesigning work from first principles
16:51 Quantifying AI financial risk and token economics
20:03 Inference costs, shadow IT, and runaway bills
23:14 The trust gap: 70% at the top, 6.7% at the bottom
26:47 Governing a workforce of AI agents
32:15 Success theater vs. real business metrics
37:37 Responsible deployment, guardrails, and OpenClaw lessons
42:37 How AI is transforming the CIO role
46:05 Why storytelling is the CIO's most important skill
50:02 Human times machine: the essential equation

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💬 Read show notes and get the transcript: https://www.cxotalk.com/episode/deloitte-cto-on-the-ai-investment-trap-cio-advisory-2026

🎙️ ABOUT CXOTALK
CXOTalk features unfiltered conversations with C-suite executives from major companies about AI, digital transformation, and business strategy. Hosted by Michael Krigsman.
Episode 912 | Recorded March 15, 2026

#CXOTalk #AIStrategy #EnterpriseAI #DigitalTransformation #Deloitte #CIO #AIGovernance #TechTrends2026 #AIInvestment #AgenticAI

A healthcare CEO once told former CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden, he had "a fiduciary responsibility not to provide good diabetes care" because the ROI takes 7 years and patients leave after 4. That's not a villain talking. That's our system working exactly as designed, without preventive medicine.Dr. Tom Frieden ran the CDC under President Obama, served as New York City Health Commissioner, and now leads Resolve to Save Lives, a global nonprofit working in 50+ countries. His new book, The Formula for Better Health, lays out why the U.S. spends $4.5 trillion a year on healthcare, gets the most basic things right less than half the time, and what it takes to fix it.You'll discover:✅ Why preventing heart attacks actually costs providers money, and the one system (Kaiser Permanente) where that's flipped✅ How 100 million Americans lack primary care, and why tripling primary care spending could reduce total Medicare costs✅ The "See, Believe, Create" formula that has already saved millions of lives globally✅ Why Dr. Frieden says "it is now malpractice not to care for a patient with an AI as part of the team"✅ The 7-1-7 accountability system now used by 50 countries to find and stop disease outbreaks✅ How a $5 copay on preventive medication measurably increases heart attacks and strokes✅ The six specific health measures Dr. Frieden says matter most (with exact target numbers)✅ Why misinformation is the most lethal health threat: "a fire hose of falsehoods driven by the monetization of misinformation"⏱️ TIMESTAMPS0:00 A healthcare CEO's shocking confession about diabetes care0:45 Why the U.S. healthcare system is designed to fail2:10 Primary care: the most neglected piece of American healthcare4:28 Economic incentives that punish prevention6:43 Kaiser Permanente's capitation model and why it works9:44 CVS, concierge medicine, and halfway solutions13:20 Who can fix a system where no one is accountable?14:49 The "See, Believe, Create" formula explained19:08 Measles outbreaks and the misinformation crisis24:05 AI in healthcare: enormous potential, bad judgment34:18 What's happened to the CDC and vaccine infrastructure40:56 The 7-1-7 outbreak accountability system44:39 Why other countries get better results for less money47:39 The Big 6: personal health targets everyone should know53:11 Dr. Frieden's prescription for policymakers and healthcare leaders🔔 Subscribe and hit the bell so you don't miss conversations with world-class leaders.📩 Join our newsletter: https://newsletter.cxotalk.com💬 Read show notes: https://www.cxotalk.com/episode/former-cdc-director-how-to-fix-healthcare🎙️ ABOUT CXOTALKCXOTalk features unfiltered conversations with C-suite executives from major companies about AI, digital transformation, and business strategy. Hosted by Michael Krigsman.Episode 911 | Recorded March 8, 2026#CXOTalk #Healthcare #DrTomFrieden #PublicHealth #HealthcareReform #PrimaryCare #AIinHealthcare #CDC #PreventiveMedicine #ResolveToSaveLives

Cyberattacks that used to take months now take minutes. And your defenders still can't keep up.

Rob T. Lee, Chief AI Officer of the SANS Institute, and David A. Bray, Chair of the Accelerator at the Stimson Center, explain why AI gives attackers a structural advantage. Attackers don't care if their AI breaks something. Your security team can't take that risk. That asymmetry changes everything.

✅ You'll discover:

✅ Why attackers will always remove the human in the loop faster than defenders can, and the risk calculus that creates
✅ How "death by 1,000 cuts" works: $300 per person times 10,000 targets via SIM farms equals a single ransomware payout
✅ The federated learning approach that lets organizations share threat intelligence without exposing their own data or vulnerabilities
✅ Why hackers are exploiting AI hallucinations by writing real code libraries for packages that models reliably hallucinate
✅ How to identify the right cybersecurity talent: hire for learning velocity and the "fiddling mindset," not static AI credentials
✅ Why boards must stop treating cybersecurity as prevention and start rewarding rapid detection and response
✅ The pre-compute vs. post-compute distinction for AI agent safety that most executives are missing entirely
✅ When autonomous cyber defense will actually be viable (hint: think pilotless planes and robotic surgeons)

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 AI has made "death by 1,000 cuts" attacks scalable
0:39 Why the AI security lifecycle matters now
2:27 Military history lessons for cyber defense strategy
5:00 Federated learning: sharing threat intelligence without exposing data
6:48 How incident response must evolve for AI-speed attacks
8:05 The human-in-the-loop dilemma: defenders vs. attackers
11:37 Distraction attacks: coordinated multi-target campaigns
15:37 Autonomous agents as a new attack surface
19:44 Hackers weaponizing AI hallucinations against developers
22:23 Development velocity as the real "swarm" capability
24:20 Perverse incentives: why stopping an attack still counts as failure
27:09 Your personal attack surface grew from 3 devices to 50
31:22 Protecting AI tool chains from becoming prime targets
34:25 Hackathons as the future of cybersecurity hiring
36:53 Patterns of life: instrumenting your enterprise for anomaly detection
38:18 When will we trust AI defenders without human oversight?
41:09 Pre-compute vs. post-compute: where AI agent safety rules must live
46:45 AI trust, hallucinations, and prompt injection as information warfare
51:42 Building security culture: leadership, not blame

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💬 Check the summary and full transcript for episode 910: https://www.cxotalk.com/episode/the-ai-attack-lifecycle-digital-forensics-and-intelligent-threats

🎙️ ABOUT CXOTALK
CXOTalk features unfiltered conversations with C-suite executives from major companies about AI, digital transformation, and business strategy. Hosted by Michael Krigsman.

#CXOTalk #Cybersecurity #AIThreats #AutonomousAgents #CISO #SANS #CyberDefense #IncidentResponse #AIStrategy #EnterpriseSecurity

Tim Crawford and Isaac Sacolick, both former Chief Information Officers and world-class CIO advisors, join Michael Krigsman on CXOTalk episode 909 to break down why enterprise AI strategies are failing, what separates transformational CIOs from those who are drowning, and why earning your seat at the table matters more than ever in 2026.

You'll discover:
✅ Why Tim says both AI strategy AND IT execution are failing, and what CIOs are focused on instead of outcomes
✅ The "three-legged race" framework: how CIO behavior, IT culture, and external perception must align for strategic credibility
✅ Why most CIOs have only a "layperson's understanding" of their own business, and how that kills AI value
✅ Tim's two swim lanes of AI success: invisible integration or robust training (there is no middle ground)
✅ Why Isaac says AI is "reshaping" business but not yet "transforming" it, and the product management shift that changes everything
✅ How to evaluate agentic AI: the human-in-the-loop vs. human-out-of-the-loop decision framework and why cybersecurity proves you can't wait
✅ The shadow AI paradox: why the best CIOs encourage it (with guardrails) instead of shutting it down
✅ The three skills every IT professional needs now: business acumen, critical thinking, and data literacy

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Cold open: "If you think you should have a seat at the table, you've failed"
0:35 Why both AI strategy and IT execution are failing
2:08 The productivity measurement problem with AI
2:45 What CEOs and boards want from CIOs in 2026
4:28 Why CIOs don't truly understand their business
6:54 Why organizations are stuck in AI pilot mode
9:04 Tim's 2 swim lanes: invisible AI vs. training-wrapped AI
11:23 Audience Q&A: Inside-out thinking vs. outside-in thinking
14:34 The 3-legged race: earning your seat at the table
17:09 Moving from AI efficiency to true business transformation
20:03 The shift from project-oriented to product-oriented IT
20:31 AI governance, CISO alignment, and data sensitivity
27:15 Agentic AI: fully autonomous vs. human-in-the-loop
34:46 Agentic AI strategy and the value equation (opportunity minus cost)
38:46 Shadow AI: innovation source or security threat?
43:00 Governance as culture, not a bolt-on
46:00 The AI skills gap: business acumen, critical thinking, data skills, and curiosity
49:46 Are survival-mode CIOs sabotaging their careers?
52:15 What CIO greatness looks like in 2026

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🎙️ Read the summary and full transcript: https://www.cxotalk.com/episode/cio-agenda-2026-delivering-on-the-ai-promise

#CXOTalk #CIOAgenda2026 #AIStrategy #AgenticAI #DigitalTransformation #CIO #AIGovernance #EnterpriseAI #AILeadership #BusinessTransformation