Super Bowl’s AI Ad Takeover, Agent Security Nightmares, and DevOps Next | TSG Ep. 1014

Wow. Hey, everyone, call me by surprise there. Happy Friday.

It's Alan Shimmel and, uh, you are watching Text On Gang on Friday, Friday before the Super Bowl. Stay tuned for the end of today's show. We're gonna make our picks in case you've all been watching Who Cares about Marucci and all those guys on NFL Network.

The picks are right here, guys. Let me introduce you to our gang, who's gonna be doing, picking along, talking about our usual texture on gang stuff today. We've got our West Coast contingent up early, bright, probably rooting for the Hawks, though.

Yeah, I don't know about John Schwartz, he's a niner guy. I, but we, we've got John Schwartz, we've got Fred Wilmont, who in Seattle, I'm assuming is bullish on the Hos Go Hawks. Go Hawks.

Yep. We've got Jack Poller joining us as well as high up in the Colorado. Well, it's early in the morning for him to be high up there, but Mitch Ashley, uh, VP from future and of course, sitting in New York, our dean, Mike Ard.

Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Super Bowl, Friday special edition Tech, strong gang. Mike. You know, I think the Super Bowl's become just a football game that breaks out in the middle of an AI factory.

It is true. And not to mention all those wonderful tech ads that we're gonna see, but, uh, we've got a couple of stories this week up on that. John has been covering a little kerfuffle between the open AI and the Anthropic people over an advertising campaign.

And then Alan has a story talking about, well, all the Cold Tech that's being used at the Super Bowl, that's over on Techstrong it. But before we get started, we're gonna run a little video that we've created with a little help from YouTube and we're gonna show, well, you know, some of the stuff that's going on at the ai. So hopefully folks, you'll enjoy this.

Stay tuned. The Super Bowl isn't just a football game, two yards, it's a logistical monster. We got f*****g Traffic here.

Behind one kickoff is years of planning, billions of dollars and one of the largest security operations in the country for the Super Bowl. Entire cities compete for the right to host it. Thousands of workers, volunteers, media members, and law enforcement agencies are involved.

Private jets, flood airports, hotel rooms disappear. And for one week, everything in that city revolves around a single event. So how does the NFL actually pull it off?

Good question. Good question. That sounds like one of our Textron gang episodes.

So, but Alan, I know you dive deeper into the text, so, and the question left at the end of the video is how does the NFL pull it off? But what impressed you so far, far as all the tech that you've seen in the past week, people talking about, and, um, you know, what's your, can we ever do anything like this without tech? The Super Bowl wouldn't be the Super Bowl without tech, and every year it becomes more and more technologically complex.

com, which is the real 12th Man homage to all my Hawk fans out there. But the real 12th man is the tech guys who make this happen, right? And then I I have another article actually that just came out this morning on Security Boulevard called The Real Offense and Defense because security is a world unto itself in this Super Bowl.

This is a high target, a high impact target, a high visibility target. There are a lot of hackers who are salivating a lot of bad guys who are salivating to try to upset the apple cart here, maybe break, break a transmission, do something, let alone, you know, bill Belichick interceptor video signal or something like that, and, and gain an unfair advantage. But I'm gonna tell you what I think is the biggest technological challenge that has arisen the last three to five years gambling betting.

There are, there are people who will bet which player spits first in the Super Bowl, let alone who carries the ball, scores a touchdown, catches a pass, or throws a pass. And so every single play brings a whole new world, you know, a whole new batch of bets being made in real time or for real money that have to be tracked. So you can't have delays on transmissions and everything else.

The the gambling aspect of this has complicated the technology more than it was before We look, we had to worry about video transmissions. We had to worry about did the players have the technology on the sidelines to watch replays? Did the referees have the replay technology, right?

Did the helmet radios work? Were were the guys sitting in the stand able to listen to the play by play on his AirPods, right? You need great wifi, the Santa Clara, the Levi Stadium.

I remember taking a tour there when it first came out, man, I want a technological wonder that stadium is, but I'm telling you, betting gambling has it. It's, it's a monster that's added into this that really, and it's, no, no pun intended, it's raised the stakes. John, you're out there, you're just down the road from where this has all taking place.

Are you starting to see visible signs of it in the community? What's the local impact? Yeah, I mean, it's not, I mean, to be honest, for, for, uh, things Been following Alan is this, uh, hold on.

Mitch, John. Mitch John's talking. I think you're okay.

Sorry, John, You want me to talk or you want Mitch? Uh, so in this community, go Ahead John. So I'm gonna be going down, my wife and I are gonna be going down there and later this afternoon to, to to, to check it out because they have this big fan experience that they do.

They have a number of panels they have here. The whole week has been devoted to some sort of party or event, but there, there are more panels around tech and, um, I mean, ESPN has set up these booths outside, ironically, they're all in San Francisco. The Super Bowl remember is in Santa Clara, which is about 40 miles south of here.

And Santa Clara, whenever there's a game with the Niners, they usually show the bridge, which is always kind of a, a sore spot for Santa Clara because in a sense, the stadium is next to what used to be, or what will soon be a former amusement park called Great America. So it's kind of a, a kind of a desolate area. And I, I mean, I say that because I grew up there.

Um, the, the one thing, and I, I don't wanna get ahead of myself, but Mike, um, the, the one thing that's getting all the attention right now is the, uh, anthropic adss. So there are a couple of Anthropic ads that are coming out during the Super Bowl in which they poke fun at open ai. And Sam Altman is really taking it personally.

I mean, he's, he's, he's fairly p****d off about it. And in a sense, they're, they're the satire they're using in the ads to make fun of open AI for resorting to revenue, for advertising revenue is creating a lot of, uh, a lot of headlines out here because of the rivalry between the two companies. So that is gaining a lot of traction.

Um, and it's also tough, I'll be honest, it's really tough. So this is a 49 er area and the two team, the two teams that this franchise and this fan base would least like to see in the Super Bowl and Seahawks who have, have destroyed the 49 ERs twice in three weeks and are now the, I think the best team in the NFL. And then the Patriots who have won, was it six Super Bowls?

So they're going for the record seventh, which would break the tide with the Steelers. So, um, and yeah, here's another irony and I'll, I'll pass it back to y'all. Irony is that Tom Brady, who grew up here, he grew up actually a few miles from where I live, is very, very unpopular here.

He's incredibly disliked among the local fan base because of the comparisons and because of his achievements versus Montana. So, um, it's kind of a conflicted feeling here, but um, again, the tech, the tech industry is looking at the, at the ads and the answer actually creating a lot of buzz. John, it sounds like you got a grudge I think connection the same thing I do.

I mean it's, I I, yeah, I do. I mean, the nine or the 49 ERs seven won Super Bowl and what is it, 31 years. So it's the only team that it's been longer, it seems have been the Jetson, the Cowboys, and then those who've never won.

So yeah, might, no, Lemme just say the Buffalo Bills. Yeah. Poor bills.

I think we lost Mitch there for a second. Maybe he'll dial back in. Oh, Okay.

Um, so can I also mention one other thing? So, so one, the one thing that I, I want to point out, uh, the subtext that I think is really interesting between the OpenAI and Thro kerfuffle is that OpenAI said they would never advertise and now they are going to, because they need the revenue, they're gonna do a lot of things they said they wouldn't do for the revenue. And Anthropic is very, very adroitly sat satirizing that.

And I think that's what it hard for Altman because there's a lot of pressure on Altman and that company to create revenue streams. Um, and this reminds me of another ad that ran 42 years ago, the 1984 ad in which Apple poked fun at 1984 and the big brother visage of, of, uh, IBM and that brilliant ad that was only run once, and it was in January of 1984. But let's be fair, there's also a long history of of unprofitable companies who shot their load on Super Bowl ads and, uh, it didn't work out so good for them.

Hey Mitchell, you are back, I hope. Can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you.

I know there was something you wanted to say. We were waiting for you. I, I was just wanting make the connection between AI and then you mentioned betting and uh, I'm not sure where all the, where areas it's gonna show up, but I think we're gonna be hearing about some AI related betting.

One possibility, you know, this whole malt bot Claude bot thing that, uh, really took off went viral in the last two, three weeks. There's a whole segment of that, of people who have turned quad bott, uh, loose with some crypto. So I'm anxious to see if we're gonna see some quad bott betting going on on the, the Super Bowl or maybe the Olympics or both.

We'll see, I, I'm, I'm betting money that it's gonna happen. Talk about betting. Well, I, I saw they opened up a forum where Claw Botts can rent humans to do things like that for them.

Oh, I have not heard that one. I know they formed a religion and they're talking, they're CA language. Hold on, hold on.

Mike says Claw Botts are later. So All, Sorry Mike, I didn't mean to, to the, Alright, well let, let's talk. Well, you know what, Wait, I wanna go to Fred for a minute.

You're Fred, you were in Seattle area, you were a Seahawks fan. What's the buzz like up there? Uh, it's, I mean, it's pretty epic.

Uh, as you can imagine, everybody remembers however older young you were, uh, a moment. We did not give the ball the marsh on Lynch and, you know, basically lost the Super Bowl on the one yard line. So there is a little bit of, uh, payback.

I think people feel here. It's a super different team. The vibe is different.

It doesn't have, this team doesn't have all of the superstars of that era in that time. And it's, uh, a team that I think is playing for their coach and for the fans. So everybody's pretty excited.

There's a whole contingent of Seahawks people that'll be down there representing. Sorry, uh, Schwarzi, you gotta contend with the fact that you had a lot of injuries this year. Yeah.

You know, it's funny. No, that's, that's, that's cool. Um, Fred, I was gonna tell you, Fred, um, the Seahawk fans do travel well.

So people talk about how the Niner fans travel. Well, I went to a Seahawks game against the Niners a couple of years ago, and it was the best turnout of the other teams fan base I've seen in the games. I've gone down there.

It's a great rivalry. Really Wanna point. The most conflicted fans in the football universe right now are Jets fans.

They don't know who to root for. They got their former quarterback on one team that they're kind sad that they let go. And then there's the Patriots.

So who knows what's happening here In New York. You know what? The jet fans even rude anymore, Mike, Haven't they given up?

Resistance is futile. Fred, I wanted to ask you though about security, right? Because I, as I said, I wrote about the real offense and defense of the Super Bowl is security.

It is a gargantuan task to, I mean, you gotta defend against hacktivists. 'cause this is a great hacktivist kind of, you know, let's take a knee. Um, you gotta defend against nation states who would like to have see egg on on the US faces.

This is our big event, bigger than the Olympics for us. You gotta defend against one team from another team. Kitty scripters thieves just flat out thieves who wanna make money doing all this.

What do you think it's like locking this baby down? Uh, I mean, I think the, the thing, the thing that I think about the most is sort of all of the operational technology, uh, cameras, videos, drones, all those things used for which purposes turning the lights off. We've seen that movie before, but the magnitude of the, of the stage for something to happen is really kind of the deal, right?

We used to think about, uh, a great target for a particular type of exploitable vulnerability is, does it have 1% of the internet? Right? Well, if you have 1% of the viewing population, right?

What else, what else would be interesting for you from that same construct? And so, you know, it's all the cyber physical, it's the physical, it's the, you know, the ais uh, with respect to that. And as more and more of the actual game flow becomes based on things like, you know, uh, video review opportunities for all sorts of other interesting things take shape.

And I like the the other statement that, uh, that John made about, well, when we start looking at the adjacencies, right? You, you know, DraftKings and call Sheet and, you know, shimmy, when we think about what's impactful with respect to the industry on the amount of money circulating and changing hands, it's a significant disruption to have, you know, not be able to conduct business as usual at the Super Bowl. So, I mean, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's a bunch of months and there's a massive amount of people on site real time all the time for all of this.

I mean, could Sam, could Sam somehow jam the, the Anthropic commercial from playing elect, you know, electronic warfare at its best? But let's talk even, go ahead, John. Oh, wait, In your opener, you know, you gave me a flashback too.

Remember the Robert Shaw movie, black Sunday? I was thinking the same thing. Physical dealer Cowboys Super Bowl.

We say they actually filmed it at a Super Bowl. Yes, they did. They did.

That was, that was a great mo. So, you know, for those of you maybe weren't around back then, the movie, uh, John's talking about first he came up with an Orson Wells reference earlier this week. Yeah, that was, that was a bit much.

Sorry. Yeah, that was Black Sunday. What a great movie that was.

That's more physical security, of course, right? Terrorist stacks had a Super Bowl. Let's hope no one gets any ideas from that, but it it's gonna be a great game.

I I think you've got two fresh young teams. You know, the Patriots do have the Patriots Tom Brady luggage that they'll be carrying around for a while, but, um, Hey, bill Belichick didn't make the Hall of Fame. There you go.

Let's move on to our next subject though, 'cause we're, we're a little over time and talk about the, well, Mitch already let the cat out of the bag with these molt bots, claw pots. And Fred, I know you wanted to talk about 'em, and I'm sure, Jack, you have a thing to sue this thing or two to say, but I gotta go to Mike first. Mike, what do we got here?

So this is a continuing conversation. We started the week with this and folks were talking about how they're using these agents and all week long the security world has been, shall we say, Twitter, about the potential threats that these things represent. And I think John and I probably have seen, I don't know, 50, 60 pitches from different vendors talking about this.

John has a story on Security Boulevard about it. You should all check out. But Fred, is this kind of the wake up call that, you know, the security people have been waiting for around ai?

Or are we just gonna ignore you guys one more time? Definitely gonna ignore us a little bit longer. I think, uh, wake up call.

I think the interesting part about this, a lot of folks are sort of really, uh, fixated on the fact that there's this, uh, community and consensus building, whether it's, you know, the Church of Molt or it's the Molt Road or, uh, molt book or, you know, just, just using, uh, a bot to do various things in and of themselves. That part's interesting, but it's, it's all about the adjacencies and the collateral damage effects, right? So imagine that somebody is super excited to vibe code an application.

They get, uh, you know, a bot basically that they've spun up, uh, whether it's clot or, or whichever, and they give them access to various amounts of information and or keys. And part of the massive concern around this is those bots that have built consensus also have exposed an awful lot of credentials. And while that's interesting, it's not just the read part of those behaviors, it's the right part of those behaviors that are significant.

And so you've seen and heard a lot of organizations come out and say, Hey, look, there's privacy breakdowns, there's, you know, guardrails that need to be here. There's systemic risk involved in what's happening, all of which are right. And, you know, the characteristics of things like, you know, having access to a SUPA DB and the keys that associated with a particular user, if the ratio of credentials and human interactions to bots is something like 88 to one at the moment, means that for a fleet of folks that have, you know, real work to do and bots that are enabled to do it, there's a lot of the things that we would do for human identities we might just pass over for what we're gonna relate is the delta between non-human identities and, you know, sort of the bot fabric.

What it's not is it's not some super ecosystem of intelligence that suddenly swarmed together and created super intelligence, uh, collective. And, and that's a key thing to make sure we point out. 'cause a lot of this, there's, you know, 17,000 humans involved in this mix too.

Two, Jack, I know you wrote about securing AI agents as well on Security Boulevard. What's your assessment of this? Is this the nightmare come real?

Uh, yes and no. So that's with everything, it's a yes and no answer. I'll, so I'll relate this back first to the Super Bowl, right?

So I'm one of the 99% as opposed to Fred Wilmotts, 1% that believes sports is either F1 or football played with your feet, not with your hands, okay? Uh, and the amount of, uh, attention that football gets in the United States, American football does European football gets that attention. And F1 gets that attention every week around the world.

And they have gone through all of these exercises, both on the physical side and on the, uh, digital side of security. And I hope that the Super Bowl organization in NFL sort of learns that lesson. And I talk about that because the people who wrote Claude Bot mbo et all ignored every single lesson we have learned in the past 55 years or 60 years of computer science and technology and security, including doing the absolutely stupidest thing you could possibly imagine, which is storing your credentials in clear text in the system.

So anybody who uses this gets what security issues they, they get, they deserve it. Uh, and I believe, So Jack, lemme just get this straight. You're saying you're not impressed with the security they just did.

He stopped at the Clearex passwords. I would, I would need a, a Sherlock Holmes style magnifying glass to go find any concept of security in this system. All right?

It is, it is a really bad, poorly engineered system, and it is a very good lesson in, and it also is a good lesson in why NIST put out, and this what I wrote about is it's a good lesson for enterprises in under understanding the security of their applications and things that people install on their own in their environment and give access to everything in their environment that you have to be very careful of, particularly on the agent AI world, where these things can act autonomously and as Fred said, have right access to your data, not just read access. The article I wrote was about NIST putting out an RFI to standardize the security around a AI or AI agents that are doing things in your environment. And I think that's very timely, unfortunately not timely enough because these guys didn't get the memo.

You know, I've got a cultural reference for you, Allen. So if you remember, there's a little back a little ways. The the movie full metal jacket, the first half of it where Arley Emery is the gunnery sergeant, I think his name was Hartman, and he's giving a lecture there with the shooting range, talking to all the, uh, plebes or whatever they are that are, they're going through about what one motivated marine with a rifle can do a top of the tower at the University of Texas.

And the amount of damage that he can do that, that's baba that's this what one, one motivated person with access to a vibe coating can do. There are no constraints. There are no guardrails to your point, Jack.

I, I'm, I don't think that magnifying glass is gonna help you find any security. Let, lemme chime in here. So I'm gonna take off my security hat and put on my business person realist hat, Mitch, Fred, Jack, I'm real am really sorry for you, but the train's left the station, gentlemen, this thing is viral.

This thing is viral. It's out of the box. You couldn't put it back if you had a 12 shovels or whatever you need.

It's done. And, and it just proves the age old adage that we've all, anybody in security has talked for the last 20 years till we're blue in the face. They don't give a hoot if, if, if security, uh, as I learned in that podcast 15 years ago with the, uh, with the no sequel guys.

They'll build security in when their customers demand it. But it seems to me right now their customers aren't demanding it. Let me give you a real life story.

On Monday, on Monday, this whole thing broke. All hell broke loose the Crusta Ferry and Church issued decrees. Mike said, Mike started pumping out security warnings.

We need some content on this. We need some content on this. My IT guy here at Futurum Tech Trunk says, Hey, I set up an MCP server to use the M bots.

You think we should put it in? Mike, am I lying? Am I lying?

No, I'm not lying. This is, this is the state of where we live. Glad I'm Not running it anymore because I Please tell me you said no, Alan, please tell me you Said no, of course.

I said, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Have you read what Yes.

I said, no, Jack, thank you. But, but this is the world we live in, gentlemen. This, this is it, man, It's a feed.

It's like a I agree. It's, it's a, it's a frenzy. Sorry, Mitch.

Just, I just gonna be real quick, Alan, you said viral and all the elements. It, it's just feeding off the, the, the stories, the security companies are taking advantage of this. People are intrigued by it.

It's just, it's just like an escalating nightmare. Sorry, Mitch, Jack, is there any way, wait, I wanna ask Jack something here. And you wrote this article with the NIST framework and I read it and it seemed like the framework is fairly detailed or whatever, but, um, is there any way to secure this thing at all?

I mean, can I add controls, govern this thing? Or is it so like wide open that there's no hope? Uh, I believe you guys have kids.

How did you prevent your kids from eating Tide pods during the viral Tide Pod challenge? Don't buy Tide pods. That's what this is.

That's, that's literally what this is. It is as dangerous and as bad for you and as viral as that. And the hope is that the massive investment in AgTech security by, I, I mean, I work with a whole bunch of startups, whether it's or Escape or, you know, even Palo Alto and CyberArk or there's, you know, 700 different security companies that are taking, you know, looking at it and going this way and all the different angles trying to protect people from swallowing Tide pods.

And there's only so much we can do. I think that every day somebody wakes up in Iran or Russia or China, wherever and just marvels at look what they did again to help and make my job so much easier to hack into whatever it is. I mean, they must laugh at us every morning.

They're like, you know, these guys are insane, but what the hell? Well, it, it goes beyond Mo bots on that mic. Yes, good point.

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, can I mention something?

Jack, Jack, Jack mentioned F1. I, I just, I was going to say that I, I don't know if you've gone to F1 race, I'm sure you have Jack. Mm-hmm.

But I think every F1 event is a Super Bowl in terms of the, In terms of size and scale and the impact at a global level, not the United States, but at a global level. It's as lo it's a Super Bowl every other week in a Different, Every other week. The Use of, yeah, and the use of technology.

And I've, I've written a couple stories about it, unbelievable. Compared to any other sport. I will, I also say one thing real quickly, which is for the 99% of us that don't follow stick and ball sports in the United States, the Super Bowl is all about the advertisements.

So this thing between Anthropic and OpenAI, I'm loving it because I mean, that's entertainment for the rest of us. Yeah, Well, no, but there'll be other good commercials. I I saw a preview of the Bud Commercial, the Budweiser commercial.

It gets you right here. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a heart grab. So, so, so my English friends call the football in the US they just call it throw Ball.

Wait a second, wait a second. You have English friends? I do.

I was out with one last night. So they just call it Throw ball. There you go.

There you go. They're pub friends. Of course, you know, this is my English friend who will go to an Irish pub, so that's why I do that.

Be an angle Still the uk. Still the uk. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, hey, easy, easy to hit on that. You're about to get A whole bunch of hate mail right now.

Alan, The Republic of Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom in all those No, it is. No it British. Yes, go ahead Mike, though.

But what about the, the folks in the uk Well, they, I mean, they're much like Jack, they don't care for the game itself, but they watch all the ads. So they're just hanging out kinda waiting. They were waiting for the ads in between the football.

The ads are big, but I, you know, I, how many of you out there play the boxes wherever you're gathering for the Super Bowl, you set up a little chart with the boxes and all of that. I, I find during the commercials, I get fixated doing the lateral longitudinal lines to see what permutations I need to win at the end of a quarter or something. And I wind up missing some commercials as a result.

But hey, maybe that's another thing that we could gain Super Bowl boxes like that. Why not? I, you know, just personally, I, I'm not a fan of anything that doesn't involve betting on your team and sticking with your team.

So, you know, if you're like betting on something and then suddenly in the first quarter you need a field goal and then you're rooting for one team, and then in the third quarter you need a touchdown and you're rooting for the other team and just find that whole process to be convoluted and against the fundamental Needs. But that's, but that's like fantasy football, right? That that's what fantasy football does.

And that's in that same lot too. And I know there are millions of people who do it, but you know, for me, pick a team and root for it and watch the game. You're a purist, Mike.

What can I say? A throwback. Hey, let's jump to our next topic though.

And that's AI native DevOps, that's the subject of our RSA event. Monday at Moscone Center for RSA week, I believe it's the 23rd, is that Monday of, uh, March. And we'll be talking about securing AI native dev with some really great speakers, including one Mitchell Ashley, right?

Uh, David Brynn, Hugo Nebula, award-winning author and, uh, guy po. And some other great folks as well. But Mike, what's this one about?

Well, Mitch has a new report out about the state of AI DevOps and what we're seeing out there, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, but 60% of the folks survey said they're already using these tools and it looks like the rest of 'em will be shortly in the next 12 to 18 months at the most. And there's a lot of money being spent on these tools according to the report. But Mitch, walk us through this.

Yeah, there, there are a lot of great data points in it. Probably the top ones are, you know, we went from the beginning of last year, beginning of 2025, where it was about 40% of organizations were using AI in some way, right? Maybe experimenting mostly at the time.

And now we're, we've jumped up to 20% that they're using it extensively. Um, and, and a total of between extensively and, and using it on some projects ended up to be about 60%. And when you add in the other folks who are considering it or evaluating or testing it, um, we're easily, we'll be close to 95, 90 7% by the end of the year.

And I can say that pretty safely. 1% said they're not considering AI tools and software development, DevOps other parts of the life cycle. So it's pretty substantial, I'd say very substantial in one year.

It's not as quite as fast as Malt bot, but in one year to make that kind of a leap in a technology being adopted is, you know, just like gen ai unheard of. The other, uh, I think really interesting stat that stood out was the increase in spending, uh, in areas of it traditionally, uh, resources finding people. Is that the, one of the biggest issues and everybody expects to hire.

It's always been an issue in, in, uh, security of course. Um, but of all the cloud expenses, all the other things, when you look at the people we're planning to increase their budgets beyond what they are currently today, over the next 12 to 18 months, AI jumped up to the top of the list. Probably not too surprising, but it wasn't just development, it was also AIOps DevOps, operations security.

They're looking at how they can use AI across the board. Now we, I think we all know we're moving from the 2025 era of experimentation to 26, which is get real. We need to get real value out of ai.

And that's the focus. We'll see if the rubber will meet the road, but that's, that's what the data's saying. Hmm.

So let me ask you a question. Are we ever gonna get to the point where 100% of the code is written by a machine and how far away is that? Or maybe we're already there for all I know.

Well, I did, I did another report on this of, you know, can you generate a hundred percent of the code like Boris Cheney does at um, at, um, anthropic, which he's talked about doing. And of course, that's the person who developed the tool, right? Using that tool to generate a hundred percent of the code.

The, the way I take any claim by a company of we're generating our code, 60% of it is, is generated with, with ai. That doesn't mean it's done autonomously. That's done with a person directing it, prompting it, going through a whole iterative process, pure standalone AgTech.

I can go everything from writing code to deploying it. I think we're quite a ways away from that, years away from that. 'cause there's so much more than involved in software than just generating the code.

Where we're, where we're at, Mike, is, yeah, I can use it as an assistant, but now we're in the era, we're starting to do more agents to do some of the workforce code reviews, some of the process automation. It'll be a stepwise fashion. And of course some people will be on the leading edge of it.

Some folks will be very, you know, very much the slow adopters. So I think there are ways from all of our software now that said, the value of writing code is going down because you can generate so much code faster, um, in, in whether it's by a programmer or someone else. So the value isn't in writing the code, it's in the, the people behind engineering how that code gets built, whether it's an end user security person or a developer, whatever.

It's Fred, do you agree with that? You know, AI is essentially hamburger helper assessment or what? Uh, I probably have a little bit different take than Mitch on this, uh, in the sense that I, I mean, today people are using multiple bots every day to write massive amounts of code, do code reviews a lot of the life cycle.

I mean, you know, there are organizations that aren't hiring people anymore. You're not getting junior developers anymore. You don't need to.

And the force multiplier for, you know, senior engineers is, is dramatic whether it's 10 x or a hundred x. And I think, uh, from the standpoint of when do we get to a place where, you know, humans aren't in the loop that I, I would say that we're at least a couple years away from, you know, that level of sophistication. But I would say, you know, in a lot of cases, and I, you know, for, for us specifically, you know, that's, that's 60 to 70%, you know, in 2025 now it's probably 85%.

And the rigor behind developing the process and the automation behind it is something that I think is the only way you can, you know, use the force multiplier of a handful of engineers doing, you know, 30 engineers worth of work, whether it's, you know, DevOps oriented platform level, uh, or it's, you know, writing core functionality into, you know, security products, uh, and product security. So it, in, in, in my book, I would say and grant it, right? You know, startups are always closer to the edge here.

But I, I think there's gonna be a tipping point, uh, where the level of sophistication for work being done here, uh, minus this Claude bot situation that we see out, you know, present tense of lack of awareness of what the implications are from folks doing that kinda work. Folks that do it as a job and do it, uh, for the tool mindedness of what their company is trying to bring to market. You know, everybody has an essence of fiduciary duty to be doing that.

So the challenge isn't whether or not engineers see the value in it. It's whether or not folks sitting on the board of directors understand the implications of their business. And I think that's the question that we'll see whether or not it becomes a, you know, it's not a technical problem.

You know, I agree with you, Fred, for the leading wave. That's what we're seeing. That's not the mainstream yet.

And that's the question, when is it, when's that tipping point when the we're at that mainstream that have adopted to that degree? And you and I are kind of thinking similar around the timeframe of that. I think the gentleman Alan Shimmel was raising his hand, wanted to say something.

No, no, no. I, I was Mitch, I just wanted to commend you. Nice report, good research there.

Solid. You know, um, I, I do think now that you asked, um, I, I do think that for whatever reason, code developers have been more, um, more open to using AI to help them develop code Absolutely. Than AI use across other parts of the organization.

What I find interesting though is, you know, security people are notorious or famous for like being able, like wanting to try to break things, make, see how it gets broken and then rebuild it back. So it can't be broken that way. And I think AI's a great tool for that.

And so I'm surprised we're not seeing greater AI usage among the security lunch pail crowd, right? Figuring, figuring out how to break these things and fix 'em. Go ahead, Jack.

Yeah, I, I can sort of relate to a story. So right before we started Techstrong Gang, it was on a call with the CEO of a startup, left a major cybersecurity company with a team of 400 people to create the startup originally budgeted for a team of 20 to 25 people, six months to get first version out. Got it done in six weeks with five developers.

Wow. And basically said to his, said to his c said to his VP of engineering, he says, what were those 400 people doing at the last company we're at? Right?

It's like, what's going on? Right? And he said, basically the, the, the, the head of engineering said, uh, I spent a week, I developed a very detailed spec of exactly what I want, and I worked with the AI cloud code and others and said, go build it.

And it wrote 8,000 lines of code that then he went and read and validated it, but he didn't have to write it. He had to validate it, tweak it, make a little change here or there, or have the, the, I make a little ch tweak here or there. But again, he said, and I had it create, um, uh, test cases, security test cases, right?

And this is, they're developing a security product. So they're very conscious of the security aspect of it, and they are reading all the code. But it is clearly, as that Fred said, a force multiplier of a mass magnitude.

I think part of what's happening though is there is this hesitation to adopt on the part of large corporation engineering departments because it's the fear of, it's the old productivity versus job replacement, right? Yes. Is it, do I, do I view the tool as it's gonna increase my, my productivity and therefore I can get 10 x more done and build an even better product faster, more secure?

Or do I view it as, oh, this thing's gonna replace my job, so I'm never gonna use it. And I look at it as I just say, I look at it, it's like we no longer write an assembly for a reason, right? A higher level language.

'cause we can use a compiler to do stuff so we don't have to write an assembly or machine language. And in one sense, AI are exactly the same thing. They allow us to write in human language rather, and make the computer work for us rather than us working for the computer.

You know, my shimmy says yesterday I wrote about AI generated output code prose music has sort of a scarlet letter now among people that it's less than soulless, godless Hollow not as good. And that's changing the same way made in Japan and made in China changed over the years. But why, why does it have that scarlet letter?

You hit it, Jack. It's fear. It's fear.

People are afraid. They're afraid. Someone's gonna take their cheese.

They're afraid someone's gonna take their job. They're afraid someone's going to take their value. And until we cross that Rubicon where no, it's a tool that's gonna make me better, you're gonna have that.

But guys, yeah, that's happened. Just to throw one more thing at it. I I agree.

I said all along that developers at the tip, the spear for the adoption of ai, because it's just very natural in the psyche of developers to try, try new technology, is not just people that are afraid. It's companies that are afraid. Yeah.

And it started in development was where we're using ai, but you saw observability companies, you saw monitoring companies, you saw database companies taking claim to things that they don't do, they've never done before. Execution environments for agents, control, access, and security for AI when they're a data company. And it's because they don't wanna be left out.

They want to have something in the game. They're not necessarily sure what yet. But we're seeing a lot of that movement started the end of a last year, and it's certainly carrying on into 2026.

Absolutely. Gentlemen, it's that time though. We need to make our picks for the big game.

Yes. I'm gonna ask you who you want. Will they cover and final score in terms of covering what is the line for this game?

Anybody know? John? Four and a half.

Four and a half. Uh, Any Seattle's? It's been, it's been sticking at four and A half.

Yep. All right. Fred, you probably have the least.

Uh, uh, you know, I, I don't think anyone doubts what camp you are in, but what's your pick for the big game? 27 14 Seahawks Covering? Way to go, Jack Poller.

I don't know. I know it's not your sport, but you wanna throw a dollar into the pot? I'm voting for Budweiser all the way.

Budweiser. Okay. Good ad, Good ad.

Mike Ard. I'm pretty close to Fred. I'm 27.

17 Seahawks Excellent. John Swartz, how about you? Seahawks in a blowout 30 to seven.

Wow. Wow. I like that.

Bold. Maybe more bold John. Bold John Donald's, uh, vindication story is his, he's gonna be the MVP.

Fantastic. I love it. John, Mitch, how about you As an old Steve Largent fan and someone who will never pick the Patriots?

I'm going for the Seahawks 28 to 14. I love it too. Hey, I'm a steel list fan.

The last thing I need is the Patriots to have seven Super Bowls. So for that reason alone, I'm all in Go Hawks. I, I also don't think it's gonna be close.

I think there's a 34 14 34 17 game hawks. And uh, there you have it. So what do we have?

We don't have one Niners pick on here, huh? No. Patriots pick Patriots.

I mean, Patriots Pick. Excuse me, I don't even like to say their Name. I think, you know what?

I think in the last couple, I think the last few days, the Patriots, through their owner and through some other things, have created a lot of Seahawks fans for this game. Honestly, There's a lot of haters too. All right, so, hey, here on the gang, we're all in on the Hawks and Budweiser, right?

We've got one, one write in, vote for Budweiser. Have a great weekend. Everyone.

Enjoy your Super Bowl. Win lose, tie, draw, security incident or not. We are gonna be here Monday to talk about it, but remember, noon eastern time on Monday, we start our new next adventure in the, in the gang, starting at noon to give our friends in the West coast and those of you stayed up late, a chance to recuperate before you join in.

Have a great weekend.