KEVology: How Exploit Scores and Timelines Shape Real Security Decisions | A Brand Highlight Conversation with Tod Beardsley, Vice President of Security Research of runZero

Princess Okoro, Manager, Security Governance, Risk and Compliance at Trainline, makes the case that adding AI to a broken process only makes the process worse. She shows how her team uses a ChatGPT policy review agent as a first pass with a human checking every finding, and why AI governance is the next problem to solve.

ESET PROTECT combines AI security, 24/7 monitoring, and a cyber warranty in three packages, and Ryan Grant says ESET took it down to 10 seats. Ryan Grant also covers treating an AI tool like an employee, the GuardBreaker decoy prompt, and the free AI Skills Checker.

Organizations are tearing apart their workflows and rebuilding them with AI-assisted tooling, which means the shelf life of a security architecture is now measured in months rather than years. John Linford of The Open Group makes the case that open standards are not the bureaucratic drag people assume, but the only thing capable of telling a security team why a tool exists before someone buys it.

Black Hat USA 2026 was not the year AI arrived, it was the year the industry stopped asking whether to adopt AI and started grinding through the four questions that come after it. Who is accountable, what is the evidence, where is the data coming from, and is the foundation actually configured to hold the weight.

On July 15, Tidal stops paying royalties on fully AI-generated music, and the same move is spreading through publishing, film, science, software, and hiring at the same time. When generating anything costs nothing, the proof that a human made it becomes the product, and the only question left is who collects the fee.