How Do You Defend Against AI That Can Hack?
The a16z Show
Aug 18
How Do You Defend Against AI That Can Hack?
How Do You Defend Against AI That Can Hack?

The a16z Show
Aug 18
Unprocessed episode, you can be the first!
Shownote
Shownote
a16z's Joel De La Garza is joined by Nick Warner of Neo and Max Pollard of
Cotool to discuss what happens when cybersecurity tools built to defend against
humans and malware suddenly have to contend with AI agents. As frontier models
become more capable of finding and exploiting vulnerabilities, many of the
assumptions underlying traditional security are beginning to break.
They explore why guardrails designed to stop AI-powered attackers can also
prevent security teams from doing their jobs, why defenders increasingly need
access to multiple models, and how agentic software creates an entirely new
endpoint security problem. They also discuss why static signatures and even
newer techniques like honeypots are struggling in a world where software can
reason and act autonomously.
Recorded around Black Hat, the conversation looks at how security teams are
adapting in real time and why the same AI capabilities creating new attack
surfaces could ultimately give defenders their biggest advantage yet.
Resources:
Follow Nick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholaswarner/
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholaswarner/]
Follow Max on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmpollard/
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmpollard/]
Follow Joel De La Garza on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/3448827723723234/
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/3448827723723234/]
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Transcript
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