Cybersecurity innovation is entering a pivotal phase as artificial intelligence transforms how organizations detect, prevent and respond to threats.

The old playbook of reacting to breaches after they occur is giving way to a smarter, faster model — one where AI agents think, act and even communicate in real time. As attack surfaces expand and threat actors adopt AI of their own, security leaders are racing to deploy agentic technologies that can automate defense, predict attacks before they happen and radically shrink response times. What’s emerging isn’t just an upgrade to existing systems — it’s a complete redefinition of how cyber defense works, according to Daniel Bernard (pictured), chief business officer of CrowdStrike Inc.

CrowdStrike’s Daniel Bernard talks to theCUBE about cybersecurity innovation.

“Cybersecurity has turned into an AI race,” Bernard said. “Every single agent needs protection. If you look at the attack surface, it’s on an exponential rise. If you look at the amount of data that’s being produced in a day, let alone in an hour, it used to be what was produced in a year. This is all both a gold rush for adversaries, but it’s also the criticality of having cyber security that stops the breach has never been more profound.”

Bernard spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier at AWS Summit NYC, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how cybersecurity innovation is being transformed by AI-powered agents, predictive tools and proprietary threat data to help organizations respond faster and more proactively to emerging digital threats.

Cybersecurity innovation is being reshaped by AI agents and predictive tools

The growing urgency around security tooling is evident as enterprises embrace AI at scale. New offerings — such as AI Red Team Services and agentic server frameworks — are redefining how organizations assess risks, test defenses and automate threat response in real time, Bernard explained.

“We’re really proud today to announce a couple things,” he said. “One is that our AI Red Team Services are available via [AWS] Marketplace. CISOs, CIOs, CTOs, boards, CEOs are saying, ‘Go get AI adopted quick in the organization. We want to see the benefits, but what are the risks?’ That’s a very important part of having AI be pervasive in the market … having the necessary tooling and the necessary services around AI.”

This evolution is driven in part by the volume and velocity of cyber threats. With CrowdStrike’s global threat data now reporting breakout times as fast as 51 seconds, defenders need AI not just to match pace — but to get ahead. Predictive intelligence is beginning to shift the security paradigm from reactive to proactive, Bernard explained.

“We can know they’re going to happen, who they’re going to target before they even happen,” he said. “That’s where cybersecurity [is at]; it’s becoming more and more proactive and predictive.”

Central to that vision is the MCP server, a new agentic interface that enables real-time reasoning and bidirectional workflows between the user and the platform. It transforms security from a console-based task into a conversational experience — one where users prompt, receive insights and even automate actions instantly.

“Our MCP server, on top of Falcon, is like real-time reasoning insight,” Bernard added. “It’s next-gen Alexa, but for cybersecurity use cases in terms of not only giving you information, but also taking action on your behalf. It brings the user experience to a whole new level.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS Summit NYC:

Photo: SiliconANGLE