{"id":200626,"date":"2026-03-30T11:34:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T15:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/15-top-cybersecurity-ceos-on-the-future-of-ai-agents-rsac-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T13:35:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T17:35:22","slug":"15-top-cybersecurity-ceos-on-the-future-of-ai-agents-rsac-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/15-top-cybersecurity-ceos-on-the-future-of-ai-agents-rsac-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Top Cybersecurity CEOs On The Future Of AI Agents: RSAC 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

15 Top Cybersecurity CEOs On The Future Of AI Agents: RSAC 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.crn.com\/news\/security\/2026\/15-top-cybersecurity-ceos-on-the-future-of-ai-agents-rsac-2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-30 11:34:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.crn.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

CRN speaks with CEOs at leading cybersecurity vendors\u2014including CrowdStrike, SentinelOne and Netskope\u2014about where they see AI agents heading next and what they are watching closely. Here\u2019s what they have to say.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s clear that the adoption of AI agents will lead to surging demand for cybersecurity tools and services going forward, many uncertainties remain about how the technology will impact the workforce and the industry\u2019s approach to security in the future, top cybersecurity CEOs told CRN at RSAC 2026.
\n During the major industry conference in San Francisco last week, CRN spoke with the CEOs at 15 top cybersecurity vendors\u2014including CrowdStrike, SentinelOne and Netskope\u2014about where they see AI agents heading next and what they are watching closely.
\n [Related: 20 Coolest AI And Security Products At RSAC 2026]
\n The CEOs from other leading players that spoke with CRN included Arctic Wolf, Proofpoint, Sophos, Mimecast, 1Password, Absolute Security, Saviynt, Huntress, Delinea, Orca Security, Keyfactor and Zafran Security.
\n Recurring themes included how agentic is reshaping cyber risk and creating more work for security teams, while also raising questions about whether AI will ultimately replace or simply augment large portions of the workforce.
\n Crucially, solution and service providers will have a pivotal role to play in enabling the next wave of agentic adoption, CEOs told CRN, in what is likely to out-do even prior technological shifts in terms of driving cybersecurity growth. All in all, \u201cit\u2019s probably the biggest market opportunity that I\u2019ve ever seen in my life,\u201d Sophos CEO Joe Levy said.
\n What follows are insights from 15 top cybersecurity CEOs on the future of AI agents.<\/p>\n

George Kurtz, Co-Founder and CEO, CrowdStrike
\n Massive cyber risk from uncontrolled agents: \u201cWhen you look at the evolution of AI just over the last number of years\u2014you had GenAI, then you had the reasoning chains and then you had the [AI] doing work. \u2026 I think [the risk] is really around the OpenClaw model where you\u2019ve got agents that are running in the context of the user on your desktop, with access to all your data files, with everyone plugging in their credentials to plug into Box and Dropbox and Google Drive and their email and every other thing that\u2019s out there. [If agents are] having access to shells, having access to data and workflows\u2014how do you even know what\u2019s going on? In February there were a whole bunch of malicious skills that got introduced into OpenClaw. [Then there are] latent attacks\u2014if you\u2019re poisoning memory, that\u2019s not going to show up for a while. [Attackers] have the ability to get a supply chain attack in and just wait. So this is really scary stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomer Weingarten, Co-Founder and CEO, SentinelOne
\n AI creates more security work: \u201cIf we think about these agents basically as more employees, how do you scale your security operation? You\u2019re not going to be able to hire fast enough. Yes, we\u2019re getting more automated. Yes, there\u2019s more autonomy in the SOC\u2014but you still need human supervision. And I think that scaling is going to come from the partner ecosystem. \u2026We\u2019ve been talking here for quite a few years, and every year I can say the same sentence\u2014which is, \u2018There\u2019s not enough people in cybersecurity.\u2019 And every year it\u2019s going to be true. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to change even with agents. AI is not going to change it. Because AI for cybersecurity is not just something to help scale the workforce, as it does for every industry\u2014it also produces more work for the cybersecurity operator. So it\u2019s that one segment where it\u2019s not just automating work, [but] it\u2019s also creating more work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanjay Beri, Co-Founder and CEO, Netskope
\n CISOs moving faster than ever around agentic: \u201cI think the biggest uncertainty is, how fast can a CISO move to get the governance of their AI, while maintaining the velocity in their company of adoption of that AI? How do they not slow down the adoption of AI in their company yet quickly get it all governed? That\u2019s their biggest challenge \u2026 I think what it does for the industry is it has elevated [CISOs] going \u2018back to school\u2019 to learn. Every CISO and CIO and head of networks is very quickly learning about AI and how it\u2019s used. And they\u2019re moving quicker than I\u2019ve ever seen them move before. What may have been a project that they would schedule for a year out [in the past]\u2014no way. A year out, in AI time, is a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sumit Dhawan, CEO, Proofpoint
\n Security teams must get off the sidelines: \u201cThe problem right now is that cyber teams are standing a little bit on the sidelines. \u2026 AI has become a CEO priority [and] the cyber team really is not in a position to slow it down. So then, as a result, they\u2019re in a little bit of a \u2018wait and see\u2019 [situation]. Because it\u2019s happening. Every vendor is enabling AI in their products, and every business user is bringing AI, because there is a top-line directive to go adopt it as fast as possible. … But [businesess] do want and need cyber to be there\u2014because they understand that all of this new technology can bring their business down if the right protection is not there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Schneider, CEO, Arctic Wolf
\n Industry still learning what can be automated on security: \u201cYou\u2019ll see a steady increase in the leverage of agents within security operations. I think there are certain workflows that can be full autonomous, and there are other workflows that will not be fully autonomous. And I think we are still a ways away from the human-in-the-loop not being a prerequisite for most organizations. Some of that has to do with the company\u2019s risk curve. There are certain actions or certain processes or certain workflows where it can be fully autonomous\u2014and if it\u2019s wrong, or if it\u2019s slightly wrong, it\u2019s not the end of the world. There are others where, if it\u2019s wrong, it\u2019s a big deal. And that\u2019s where you\u2019re going to want to still have some human validation, some human trust within the loop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe Levy, CEO, Sophos
\n Unprecedented opportunity in security: \u201cHundreds of millions of businesses are about to go through this transformation, and there is no segment or sector or size of company that is going to be immune to this. This is an economic wave that is about to splash down on the whole planet. How equipped do most organizations feel to deal with it? It\u2019s probably the biggest market opportunity that I\u2019ve ever seen in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christy Wyatt, CEO, Absolute Security
\n More intelligence needs to move to the device: \u201cThe intelligence for all of this really needs to sit with the device itself. I think our view is long term. We talk about self-healing. It\u2019s self-healing of the application, self-healing of the network connection, self-healing of the operating system and the device itself. And so clearly, all of that happens at the endpoint. And as all of this accelerates, long term, you\u2019re going to want that device to understand its own state and be able to self-remediate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sachin Nayyar, CEO, Saviynt
\n Architecture for agents is uncertain: \u201cWe don\u2019t know if we are going to have one account per agent, one account per user, one account per role. How the agent architecture [will be set up]\u2014it\u2019s not fleshed out yet. So when we are working with customers, we are trying to figure out how many accounts we need to create for an agent to give it access. \u2026 So the agent architecture is undecided at this time. Companies are still working through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Faugno, CEO, 1Password
\n Role of partners in evangelizing about AI: \u201cNinety percent of the people in the country \u2026 don\u2019t understand [AI]. And those people run businesses. And so [there\u2019s an opportunity around] helping people understand how to harness the future in the right way and not put your head in the sand. \u2026 When you embrace it, then it becomes something that actually can drive value to help you. And so the partners can really help people see it. But the partners themselves have to lead by example.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marc van Zadelhoff, CEO, Mimecast
\n AI may not be a new paradigm for security: \u201cAt the end of the day, you have to think about the network, the endpoint, the application, the data and the identity. And then, of course, the humans that use it. Those are the tenets of cybersecurity. They have been forever. And so the question is, do we have to reinvent that stack [for AI]? Is AI a fundamentally new paradigm to secure? Or is it another technological revolution that needs to be secured with the old paradigm? I think it\u2019s the latter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Art Gilliland, CEO, Delinea
\n Compromised agents are inevitable: \u201cThe challenge is, you don\u2019t know all the places where AI breaches are going to hit you. I don\u2019t know of any [cases] where an AI agent was taken over and that was what caused the breach. But it\u2019s going to happen. Because as more companies adopt it, it\u2019ll be a weak spot in the organization. It\u2019ll be a machine-speed, deeply integrated privileged user in your environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle Hanslovan, Co-Founder and CEO, Huntress
\n Keeping humans \u201cin the loop\u201d is not enough: \u201c[AI] requires humans in the lead, not just humans in the loop. So they have to be guiding the AI. They have to be guiding the detection research. And yes, some of these LLMs are really good at finding the low-hanging fruit. But here\u2019s a wild part\u2014as AI is augmenting these really creative, organized cybercriminals, it\u2019s creating new tradecraft. \u2026 [That means] the humans have to be in the lead of the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gil Geron, Co-Founder and CEO, Orca Security
\n Uncertainty around whether AI can really replace workers: \u201cWhat is uncertain is whether these tools will only reach the maturity of co-piloting versus workforce replacement. With what we\u2019ve seen is that we are helping everyone get better, including the more junior security engineers. And there\u2019s a question if there is going to be a time where it\u2019s also going to actually replace workforce and not just augment them. The effect is that you\u2019re taking upon yourself a lot more responsibility, if it\u2019s an actual replacement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan Rackie, CEO, Keyfactor
\n AI could shorten time to \u201cQ-Day\u201d: \u201cHow is AI impacting quantum transformation? Those [teams] that are building quantum computers are leveraging AI to accelerate their timeline to a quantum computer. And so while AI is beneficial in a lot of ways, it\u2019s actually shrinking the timelines to which organizations need to be prepared [for post-quantum encryption]. AI is allowing those that are building quantum computers to think more strategically and do more cross-referenceable analysis, to build the computers faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanaz Yashar, Co-Founder and CEO, Zafran Security
\n Employers still unclear about AI\u2019s role in the workforce: \u201cI think the biggest uncertainty is, are going to use AI instead of humans? Or are we going to force multiply the same employees with AI? This is the dance we are seeing that companies are [doing] with AI. On one hand, they understand that without AI, they are going to be behind. On the other hand, when they are using it, they have to show efficiency. How do they show efficiency if they are not reducing manpower or services? So I do think that there is a decision that needs to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n

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