AI may be changing how companies build, but it's also changing how they get attacked, often by their own tools. Amazon Chief Security Officer Steve Schmidt has watched threat actors at every skill level get sharper, faster, and harder to contain. The risk he's most focused on, however, isn't coming from outside the firewall.

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, we're bringing you a conversation Rebecca Bellan had with Schmidt at the HumanX conference in San Francisco. The two dug into what AI is already doing to the threat landscape and how Amazon is rethinking identity, containment, and human oversight to keep agents in check.

Listen to the full episode to hear about:


  
Why shadow AI inside your own organization may be a bigger liability than the hackers trying to get in



  
What agentic identity means in practice, and how Amazon traces every agent action back to a human



  
How startups with five people (and no CISO) can manage their AI security, and why containment is becoming the defining security challenge of the agentic era




Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Equity

TechCrunch, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, Sean O'Kane, Theresa Loconsolo

Amazon's Steve Schmidt on why your AI agents are your biggest security risk (Live at HumanX)

MAY 13, 202621 MIN
Equity

Amazon's Steve Schmidt on why your AI agents are your biggest security risk (Live at HumanX)

MAY 13, 202621 MIN

Description

AI may be changing how companies build, but it's also changing how they get attacked, often by their own tools. Amazon Chief Security Officer Steve Schmidt has watched threat actors at every skill level get sharper, faster, and harder to contain. The risk he's most focused on, however, isn't coming from outside the firewall. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, we're bringing you a conversation Rebecca Bellan had with Schmidt at the HumanX conference in San Francisco. The two dug into what AI is already doing to the threat landscape and how Amazon is rethinking identity, containment, and human oversight to keep agents in check. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Why shadow AI inside your own organization may be a bigger liability than the hackers trying to get in What agentic identity means in practice, and how Amazon traces every agent action back to a human How startups with five people (and no CISO) can manage their AI security, and why containment is becoming the defining security challenge of the agentic era Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices