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Cisco President and Chief Product Office Jeetu Patel Talks New AI Tool for Cybersecurity |...

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Cisco President and Chief Product Office Jeetu Patel Talks New AI Tool for Cybersecurity |...

Transcript

203 segments

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[music]

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>> Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts,

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radio, news.

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>> Cybersecurity concerns mounting after

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advanced models from OpenAI went rogue,

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hacking tech from Hugging Face in a

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first-of-its-kind incident. Cisco taking

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a head-on approach and unveiling a brand

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new AI tool designed to find and address

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weak points in software. The Cisco

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president and chief product officer, Gee

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Two Patana, a good friend of this

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program over the years, joins us now for

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more. Gee Two, good to see you, sir.

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Great to have you.

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>> John.

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>> Jonathan, great to see you. How are you?

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>> Let's get into this issue. I'm okay. I'm

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always nervous, you know I am. And then

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I see those stories like this week and

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it makes me even more nervous. I've been

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asking you this for a while. Can you

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tell us, do you think these developments

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will expose vulnerabilities or over time

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just make these systems more resilient?

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>> I think the the reality [clears throat]

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is that it will be a little bit of both

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because what you'll start to see happen

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is

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uh these agents are going to be

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long-running agents that when they're

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given a task, sometimes they just keep

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going down the task. So, for this this

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um thing that happened with OpenAI and

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um

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and and Hugging Face, basically what

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happened is all that the agent was given

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was a goal.

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And it figured out a way to get out of

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the secure enclave and go out and make

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sure that it actually um

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um you know, stole the model weights in

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place else and stole the task. And so,

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what you can start to see happening

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right now is we have to one be prepared

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that an agent might behave out of the

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bounds of what you think is normal. And

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two, when it starts behaving that way,

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you have to be able to intercept it and

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be prepared that that behavior could be

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um you know, pretty bad for you. So,

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it's it's something that we're just

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going to have to live in this new world

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where agents are going to

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um as agents mature, we will have to

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figure out a way to intercept them when

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they're not behaving the way that we

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deem um it to be appropriate.

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>> Gee Two, I remember when IBM it out last

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week and started talking about the

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change in focus and the wholesale shift

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towards cybersecurity earlier this year

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as we learned about Mythos and Fable and

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how that affected their earnings. I'm

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just wondering from your perspective

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more broadly, if you can sort of

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quantify or characterize just how much

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interest in cybersecurity has picked up

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and really concentrated the focus of

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CEOs around the world.

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>> I think right now, if you think about

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what's happening in AI, there are two

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areas that are of material concern for

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organizations. Number one is

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cybersecurity, number two is the cost of

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tokens.

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And these are both things that most

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organizations are concerned about

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because if you have

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um an agent start to misbehave,

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uh are you prepared as an organization

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to be able to intercept that and make

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sure that your uh organization is safe

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from uh the exploits that the agent

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might be able to go out and create for

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you?

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Um and so it's a very, very important

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area of the business. Uh it's something

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that actually prevents some

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organizations from leaning in all the

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way with AI. So, we have to make sure

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that cybersecurity and the safety of AI

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is pretty important and um and dealt

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with it with appropriate level of

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emphasis.

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Uh and then the second one is the cost

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of tokens. It's uh these

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uh these cost of tokens can accelerate.

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These agents can um you know, they're

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running 24/7

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and if you don't monitor and observe um

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the the consumption of tokens and then

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you start to see an agent go rogue, be

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able to put some boundary conditions

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around the agent, you could actually

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start having some very big bills that

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you hadn't forecasted for. So, those are

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the two areas that most organizations

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are thinking about right now as they

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um

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uh as they make their deployments within

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uh within AI much more kind of, you

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know, uh

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broadly deployed.

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>> It's really interesting view on token

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maxing and why we're seeing a shift to

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token rationalization. I'm just

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wondering, D.J., if you think that the

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renewed focus on cybersecurity has taken

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some budget away from exploring ways to

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become more efficient, other deployments

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of artificial intelligence.

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>> Um, I I think it's

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most organizations have always had the

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balance that they've played where for

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example, right now there's

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there's more emphasis and more budgets

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being spent on AI and there's also a lot

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of budget being spent on cybersecurity.

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Of course, at some point in time there's

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a finite amount of dollars that that are

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there in IT that come from somewhere,

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but I think organizations what they're

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doing at this point in time at least is

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making sure that they've learned the

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hard way from the previous kind of um

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um, you know, episodes like COVID where

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if you don't have enough amount of

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forward investment in tech um, then you

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could actually be put in a world of hurt

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as a company. So, you have to make sure

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that you're forward investing in some of

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these areas. So, I'm I'm not seeing

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the

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the reason that people are investing in

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cybersecurity taking away from certain

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other areas, um, you know, such as AI,

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but I think over time [clears throat]

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you have to make sure that AI is

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starting to go out and produce enough

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positive return um, so that you can you

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can continue to have the investments

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being made in infrastructure for sure.

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>> Teacher, there's another debate about

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what's going on in terms of China. Do

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you think Communist China 3 is

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potentially using US technology and and

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what do you make of what is going on

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right now in terms of the race?

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>> Look, I think firstly,

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China is a

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formidable competitor to the US, but

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they've actually made a tremendous

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amount of progress.

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And this notion of if is China using

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distillation

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the answer is yes, but that's not the

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only thing. They've actually done a fair

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amount of things that are very very

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creative to go out and create a frontier

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class model and make it make it

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available, you know, to the

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[clears throat] general public as an

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open weights model. So, we should

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you know, as as the US, we need to make

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sure that we continue to invest not just

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in

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closed source frontier blast models,

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which we've been the leader in, but we

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also need to make sure that open source

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becomes

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a larger and larger part of our strategy

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as you as you as you move forward. Like

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it's it is it is in our national

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interest and it is in the interest of

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every

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individual that you know, US models get

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to use all over the world, whether it be

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closed source or open source. And by the

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way, companies like Nvidia have done a

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good job with the NeMo Tron models. I

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think Amira Morati's company Thinking

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Machines that we are an investor in has

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done a good job recently of coming out

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with almost a trillion parameter model

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with 40 million active parameters. So, I

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think you you will continue to start to

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see more and more kind of you know,

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emphasis being placed on open source,

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but it's something that we have to

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>> [clears throat]

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>> you know, you you have to keep a close

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eye on.

Interactive Summary

This episode covers the growing cybersecurity challenges posed by autonomous AI agents, highlighting the need for better monitoring and interception capabilities. Cisco's leadership discusses how organizations are prioritizing cybersecurity and token cost management as AI becomes more widely deployed. Additionally, the conversation touches on the competitive landscape with China, emphasizing the importance of U.S. investment in both closed-source and open-source AI models.

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