This isn’t cloud all over again

When cloud computing emerged, most enterprises had the luxury of time. Adoption was slow, controlled, and often optional. With GenAI, there’s no waiting. Organizations feel they must adopt—because if they don’t, someone else will disrupt them.

“This is the first time we’re seeing every major organization adopt something at the same time,” said TJ. “If you don’t, someone else will, and they’ll disrupt you.”

While adoption started with internal copilots and productivity assistants, we’ve already moved into production-scale deployments. Enterprises are integrating AI into core workflows, customer-facing applications, and decision-making systems. That shift—from experiment to execution—is driving a new category of risk: GenAI cybersecurity.

Security isn’t the brakes. It’s the engine.

CISOs are no longer seen as blockers. They’re expected to clear a secure path forward. GenAI has raised the stakes. It’s not just analytics anymore—it’s action. These systems don’t just suggest—they decide, plan, and execute. Shane put it simply:

We’re not just securing infrastructure. We’re securing decisions.

This is where autonomous agent security becomes critical. If your AI agents are thinking and acting, can you see what they’re doing? Can you control it?

Without real-time visibility and control at the cognitive layer, enterprises are exposed to AI model misuse, prompt injection, and downstream decision risk.

Compressed timelines, expanding risk

The pace of adoption is brutal. Cloud security took years to mature. GenAI is going live in under two. In many organizations, security teams are only looped in after AI applications are already in test or even production.

“There’s no such thing as a safe default,” TJ warned. “Enterprises are already out of control. They just don’t know it yet.”

And the risks go beyond data loss. With GenAI systems capable of generating code, manipulating workflows, or acting on vague user input, the attack surface has exploded. AI application security now means securing actions, not just access.

Platform or point solution? It depends what you’re securing.

There’s growing debate over whether GenAI cybersecurity should be solved with best-of-breed tools or comprehensive platforms.

TJ and Shane suggest a pragmatic split. “You can’t do it all,” said TJ.

This is already becoming two different problems—securing usage (like browser-based GenAI and shadow AI) versus securing AI applications you’re building and deploying.

CalypsoAI focuses on securing the AI you build. That means securing large language model (LLM) pipelines, agentic stacks, and inference-time behavior. It’s not enough to monitor—you need enforcement.

Why visibility alone fails in GenAI security

Knowing how many AI agents are active in your environment is table stakes. The real question is: what are they doing? Can you prove it? Can you stop it?

TJ posed the questions every CISO should be asking:

Can you answer what that agent did yesterday? What data it accessed? What thought it acted on—and whether that was the right one?

Audit trails aren’t enough. You need real-time AI behavior monitoring, policy enforcement, and intervention. That’s where CalypsoAI comes in—offering cognitive-layer security to ensure agents don’t go off script.

GenAI risk is now business-critical

A breach in a GenAI system isn’t just technical. It can expose sensitive logic, generate harmful output, or take action that causes downstream damage.

The cost of an incident now includes IP loss, brand impact, trust erosion, and operational failure.

“If you’re waiting for regulations to tell you what to do, you’re already behind,” Shane said. “The market’s moving faster than the rules.”

Securing GenAI in production isn’t a future need—it’s a present requirement. And CISOs who act now will be the ones enabling secure AI adoption at scale.

Where to start: ask the right questions

If you’re leading enterprise security, ask yourself:

• How many GenAI agents are running today?
• What actions are they taking?
• Can I audit them? Can I intervene?
• What controls do I need at inference time, not just at deployment?
  

This is the new AI security stack. It’s not about passive defense. It’s about governing behavior, blocking high-risk actions, and guiding systems toward safe outcomes. That’s what GenAI cybersecurity demands.

Explore how CalypsoAI helps secure GenAI systems in real time—before they make a mistake -> Request a demo. 

Listen to the full conversation between TJ Gonen and Shane McCallion below.