At a brunch roundtable, one of the many informal events held during the RSA Conference 2024 (RSAC), the conversation turned to the most popular trends and themes at this year’s events. There was no disagreement in what people presenting sessions or companies on the Expo show floor were talking about: RSAC 2024 is all about artificial intelligence (or as one CISO said, “It’s not RSAC; it’s RSAI”).
The chatter around AI shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who attended RSAC in 2023. Generative AI as we know it today was only a few months old then. Everyone wanted to talk about it, but no one was quite sure of the impact it would have on cybersecurity.
A year later, there are still a lot of questions, but the profession has embraced AI into its tools and solutions. It was by far the most popular topic across the educational sessions and in demonstrations and presentations across the Expo. But it wasn’t the only issue that cybersecurity professionals were contemplating. Here are some of the most popular topics that people at RSAC were talking about.
AI isn’t just generative AI
There were over 100 sessions that dealt with AI at the conference. Many conference attendees were most interested in the double-edged sword of generative AI: how to use it as a tool to detect and prevent cyberattacks and how cybercriminals use the technology to launch attacks. AI’s role in misinformation campaigns and developing deepfakes has many people worried about a significant shift in the way threat actors use overheard conference trends cybersecurity experts talking about
