Isida Drake on AI Learning, KnowBe4 Studios and Compliance Training | KB4-CON 2026

Hey everyone, Alan Shimel back here at KV4 2026. We're in Orlando continuing our interview series. If you haven't caught any of our previous interviews, go check them out.

There's been some great stuff. tv, on our Textron TV OTT app, if you like watching it on Roku or Apple TV or Amazon, or even on iOS or Android. You could probably catch it on social media.

You might see bits and clips, but if you want the full thing, go to Textron TV. I think you're going to enjoy this next interview. I spent some time speaking with our guest off camera, and it was a delightful conversation.

I just hope it comes through here. Acida Drake? Yes.

I got it right? Yes. Acida is SVP of security and compliance for e-learning here at KnowBe4.

And, for those of you who don't know, up until recently, and still today, KnowBe4's bread and butter was security training, security assurance training, training the weakest link in the chain, sort of. Yeah. The people in security, and it still is, though certainly we've seen an expansion of the go-to-market- Yes ...

for KnowBe4. But Acida, first of all, thank you for coming on. Appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. Give people a sense of how you wound up here. What's your kind of arc been like?

Oh, man. Well, honestly, education is in my blood. Okay.

I actually graduated as a teacher, so I taught first and second grade, and I still teach people, they're just adults. I'm not even going to ask what you'd rather work with, but we'll keep going. Both are great.

I love both very much. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So, I didn't start in tech. I started in education. But really, no matter whether you're in tech, in healthcare, in any industry, people need to be trained.

And it's important not because... Sometimes, of course, we'd like to think of it from our organization, right? I want to protect my organization.

But you want to protect them, too, because what we're teaching them really arches to their personal life, too. Mm-hmm. If our users learn best security practices, they're not just saving the organization.

They're not just protecting their systems. They're protecting themselves, their family, and their organization. Yeah.

If you asked my children, they would tell you that having their dad in cyber and info sec has given them a real education and training in how they're all a little paranoid themselves. They've learned good password hygiene and everything else. But Acida, I personally have lived through revolutions in training.

When I first got into tech the last century, going to get training was something you did once in your career. Mm-hmm. You spent like 16 hours, two eight-hour days in a room with 40 other people.

They showed you a nice slideshow. And how much of that did you remember? Well, I had good recall back then.

Ah. I was younger, and substances weren't in my brain. But within six months, a lot of it was gone.

But nevertheless, I was able to have my certification, and that was really all I needed to get in to get a job, and that was training. Yeah. And for too long, that passed as training.

As we were talking off camera, I had the chance to co-found a company called DevOps Institute, where we were teaching people about DevOps- Mm-hmm ... and training in DevOps and certifications. And at that time, I got an education in the education business, in the training business, that with the way I was trained probably wasn't the best way for us to continually learn.

Yeah. To stay on top of... I think we made an assumption that you had a baseline of knowledge, and it was up to you- Yeah ...

to stay current. It is. We do have some ownership as users to stay current, just like in anything else.

But this is what KnowBe4 has really made the biggest impact in training frequency. Because we have such an expansive library, our admins and our users have an opportunity to not just train once a year or once a quarter. They can really train once a month or even weekly.

I think that's a little bit too much. You don't want to go crazy with your training. " It should really just be a part of your culture, should be part of the routine.

These real-time kind of nudges of security tips and coaching are really, really, really important because you have your foundation, and that's kind of where you set the stage. This is what we really need to pay attention to. These are our big, big threats that we know.

But threats change. Threats evolve. So you can't wait till next year to train on the latest threat, right?

That needs to be continuous, it needs to be short, and it needs to be bite-sized, and that's what we offer at KnowBe4, and I think that makes it really, really engaging. We also have series. " I was telling you earlier about it.

You have this drama-esque series that really bridges reality with entertainment, or security with entertainment. And it's not because we love to do this. We do, but it's because we really, truly think that if we can engage our learners at a point where they relate to a character or an incident, they will most likely recallIt doesn't matter what substances you have in your head or how old you are, because you had a connection with that piece of training.

Right. And that memory, that recall will come when it counts. I think I agree with you.

So a couple of trends that I think you hit on that I just want to enunciate is, number one, the move from once a lifetime training to a repetitive or continuing education is a good way. And that's a word that's kind of loaded. Yeah.

Continuing education. "I got to do this," right? But I think as you said, and I think this is true, the people who are most successful never lose their thirst for learning about what they're working in.

Yeah. " You can't wait for that next- Yeah ... episode, for that next chapter, for that next lesson.

Yep. And I think that's what separates truly professional people who are passionate about what they do, versus the check the box people. Yes.

The check the box really translates in your security posture, honestly. It really, it does. It is.

No doubt. People feel the effort that you put or the investment you put in them. That's why a good security program is really important, right?

" I'm actually looking like, "What is it? Where's my next growth opportunity? " You know what?

I don't think there's a more apropos subject for that than AI. Yes. I was just talking earlier with a few folks in here at KnowBe4, and the idea of is AI going to take your job?

Well, AI isn't going to take your job. Mm-hmm. Someone who uses AI better than you- Yes ...

will take your job. Yes. And it's because this is a great opportunity to embrace it, extend your own, whether it's at the company you're at now, or your next company, or you're going to start a company.

Whatever it is, it's a great way for you to personally grow- Yes ... by taking advantage of this tool. I agree.

And the saying, "AI is going to take jobs," anybody who's used AI understands the importance of the person that is prompting AI. Mm-hmm. And the involvement that it requires for a really good outcome.

It is very good. I'm not dissing the quality of the AI outputs, but the truth is exactly as you mentioned, if you are not learning AI, if you're not using AI, if you're not building those skill sets, the people who are, they're just advancing so much faster, right? They're getting better quality work.

They're getting better results. They're also having a little bit of fun, too, right? Mm-hmm.

Because if you use it, you're amazed at the outcome. " I don't know. Every time I use it, I'm like, "This saved me a lot of time.

It actually did help me produce a better outcome," especially if you know how to prompt it. Right. It's amazing.

It's only as good as what you put into it. Yeah. I agree with you.

I wanted to talk about another aspect you brought up, which is make learning fun again, right? That's how I call it. Okay.

You didn't say that, but I'll say it. And that's part of what you guys are doing with your studio, some of the series you mentioned, where, yes, you do learn from it. Yes, it is educational, but yes, it is entertaining.

Yes. And I think people learn more that way than that old rigid classroom where we're going to- Mm-hmm ... take a ruler to your knuckles or something if you don't pay attention.

I'm too young for that. I'm old enough to remember that. It's a long story.

But anyway, talk to us about that, though. Yes. So, we have changed in how we consume content, and really, that is what we need to pay attention to.

All of us consume the news totally different than we used to back in the day with newspapers. All of us now rely, whether it's on AI chatbots to tell us our news, or learn something, or YouTube. We're just consuming it a lot different, and that part of entertainment is not necessarily pizzazz, right?

It's conciseness. It's intentional training. And if it is something that it relates to me, I will pay attention.

And the entertainment comes from the fact that it's high quality, right? It's storytelling. I can connect a lot more if the topic is tied to a story that I could relate to than if you just tell me, "Hey, this is a risk," right?

" Okay? Versus, "Hey, Asita, she's an executive at KnowBe4, and she's highly targeted because of da, da, da, da. " So that context helps build why this is important to your role, and I think that that is what KnowBe4 does really, really well, is deliver and create content that is concise, intentional, has context and storytelling, and then actionable items at the end that apply to you.

Agreed. To me, it's almost a no-brainer. You mentioned something concise.

People don't... There was a time where white papers, everybody, you want to get your word, your name out there, your brand out there, do a white paper. Seven to 12 pages with some pretty graphics, a lot of text.

No one reads those anymore. Yeah. Even articles, I could show you heat maps of our sites.

They read the first paragraph, half the second paragraph, they skim, and they hit the bottom. Our videos, this is a 15 to 20 minute video. How many of you out here are watching the full 15, 20 minutes versus are catching the- Yeah ...

the 30 or 45 second clip on social- Yeah ... or something like that? It is what it is.

This is how people consume. We're consuming content different. Yeah.

Right. How do you get quality education? That's the problem with the 10 second sound clip, right?

Yeah. How do you put quality education into the 10 second sound clip? You know what?

Frequently. Frequently, because you know you're only getting soundbites, right? And that's the opportunity that you have due to how busy people are or how they prefer to consume content.

So soundbites, it's almost like a QVC thing, right? When you go there, you know, no matter when you land at QVC, you know what they're selling. Right.

Because they know very well at what they're trying to sell to you or what they're trying to teach you. And so I think, like I mentioned, intentional is really what are you trying to teach and how long do you have it and why are you teaching? The biggest thing about our training that I tell all of my team with, they develop it.

As an end user, I want to know why should I care? Why am I sitting here completing this training? How does it apply to my role, to my maybe threat?

Right? " Right. It's interesting, we found a similar thing.

So we do a lot of webinars, which are as a form of training. Yeah. Right?

And you think about it. So our research showed that people don't like what I call a talking head webinar. Two, three people like this with a bunch of slides.

Yeah. They hate it. Yeah, it's boring.

They absolutely hate it. It's boring. They like a round table like this of give and take that they can participate in.

But you know what they like best? Hands-on. Yes.

Real product- Yeah ... demos. Not a demo of slideware, but let me- Yeah ...

play with it kind of demo. Because that's how we learn best. Because- You can tell me how to do it 10,000 times, but if I actually do it, I will remember it, or I'll know what to do.

So there's that bridge. At KnowBe4, we have games, believe it or not. Yes.

Gamification is huge. We have lots of games at KnowBe4 and on different topics. So you're still learning, but through scenarios, or you take a different path, and that's what it's intended to be, right?

Because otherwise a talking head will be boring after a while, and that's in everything. We have a lot of variety. I don't know if you know this, but we even have now audiocast.

Really? So people... Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Similar to a podcast. You don't have to watch it, just listen.

And you know- It's great for when you're bike riding or stuff. I love listening. Yes.

That's when I do my best listening is when I'm driving my bike. And we also launched a social media project. So this is for everybody around the world to basically get security tips, and we're learning a lot from social media.

Again, going back to that consumption, what people want to see, how do they want it to be delivered? And we're taking those lessons and applying it to our content for the library and the mod store. So people out here watching this say, "You know what?

This is the kind of training I'm looking for. This is the thing that I think the light bulb goes off for my people, that we can move the needle on security awareness, dealing with AI, agentics, and so forth. How do I engage?

I've got a big company. I've got a small company. " Yeah.

So, like I said, we have a lot of free resources. If you just kind of want to see what is the quality and the content that we cover and the breadth, we have a CAPI program that we just released, which is the Customer Awareness Platform for You. Okay.

And actually has content for kids. Really? Yes, kids.

And we have content on AI. We have content on social engineering. Kids are playing online, and a lot of people think, well, they're so good with technology.

They are the most comfortable with technology, which is very scary for cybersecurity, right? Because they think everybody's their friend. They don't know- No ...

right, who they're talking to because, and especially now with AI and deepfakes and voices. We just released a module regarding this, and so we have that for kids. We have it for the golden circle, so maybe for your elderly grandparents.

They're also very targeted, and then we have it for the home. So things that you need to know regarding staying safe at home. I think I would start there because that shows our commitment that we think that this is a mission to let everybody know more than just the product.

And I think you'd be impressed with there, and then you can go to the KnowBe4 website and- Love it ... fill out a form. I got one last one for you.

Okay. One last subject. AI.

Yes. Friend, foe, both, how? Friend.

Absolutely. There's no foe aspect to it. No.

No foe. Listen, it's not a trend. It's not going anywhere.

No. So make it your friend, make it your best friend, and I don't understand how... We talk about agents.

Agents are our best friends, right? They're the ones making us better, and they're making us more effective and efficient, right? So definitely my best friend.

I love it. You didn't mention, you said the KnowBe4 website. Where on the website should they go?

com. And right front and center, it's there. Yep.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Keep it up.

Thank you. All right. Hey, we've got one more here coming up before lunch today, and we've got a whole afternoon as well.

This is Alan Shimel. You're on Techstrong TV.