Episode 3
Security in Sync
With Chris Stewart
Can AI Finally Outsmart Hackers?
In this episode of REWIRED, Chris Stewart, Vice President of Global Technology, Cloud & Marketplace Ecosystem Partners at CrowdStrike, joins Akanksha Bilani of Intel to explore how AI and deep tech collaborations with AWS and Intel are syncing up to turn the tide against cyber threats.
From firmware to the cloud, Chris shares how partnerships across the tech ecosystem are helping small businesses defend against ransomware, powering smarter security through Charlotte AI, and building a safer, more secure, and resilient digital world.
REWIRED Ep 3 Podcast Transcript
Akanksha Bilani (Host):
Welcome to Rewired, a podcast that shares the coolest stories of innovation and the behind the scenes breakthroughs from Intel, AWS, and our favorite partners. I'm your host, Akanksha Bilani. I run the go to market team for Team Amazon at Intel, and our goal is to help bridge the path with AWS, our favorite partners, and our favorite customers.
Today, I had the privilege of speaking with Chris Stewart, Vice President of Global Technologies, Cloud and Marketplace, Ecosystem Partners of CrowdStrike. Chris, thank you so much for being here.
Chris Stewart:
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a true honor to be here with Intel and also with AWS.
Akanksha Bilani:
Can you tell us a little bit about your role, as well as how CrowdStrike is looking at security solutions and leveraging the latest technologies like cloud, as well as Gen AI to make things happen for our customers today?
Chris Stewart:
You know, we're in a really interesting time to be alive. One thing that you know, really is core to CrowdStrike is the innovation through collaboration. We really take pride in being the best cyber company we can in the world. And we, you know, really make an effort to partner with the best in class, partners across the whole technology stack as well as others, so that we can really build first rate, battle tested, future proof solutions for today's environment and today's customers.
The size and the scale, and you know, just obviously the sheer power that artificial intelligence is showcasing us every single day. We're seeing amazing leaps and bounds of capabilities. People do their jobs better, but also when it comes to things like cyber, we're finally getting to a point where we're turning the tide, back towards the good people, away from the hackers.
And that's exciting that we can do that, but we have to do it in consort with partners like Intel and also our friends at AWS as well.
Akanksha Bilani:
Fantastic. Keeping people safe with the power of partnerships, I love it. It's incredible work that CrowdStrike is doing right now. And thank you for leading the charge on it, Chris. What is one of the most exciting projects that you and your team have been working on lately, and how do you see it driving impact?
Chris Stewart:
Just thinking about, you know, what we do together, just, you know, from an Intel and CrowdStrike perspective, there's no shortage of collaboration from the you know, the engineering groups. They're really trying to optimize the silicon as well as, you know, just the general architecture of what we're building to truly optimize. We need to do this because the size and scale and complexity of attacks get much greater every day.
Having the ability to leverage things from firmware and BIOS protection all the way up to the application layer and everything in between. There's a lot of places where the bad people can insert themselves and do harm. The scalability element that used to be so daunting to cyber professionals, we’re shrinking that right now, thanks to the efficiencies and collaboration we're gaining, around again, some of the things like Granite Rapids, Xeon, etc.
So this really is helping build a powerful tech stack for, you know, customers, that's going to drive better security results and ultimately make for a more secure world.
Akanksha Bilani:
Security of your data is so crucial, and I think our collaboration on our project about going out and talking to small and medium businesses on how we can help them keep the bad people out and keep the good data in and make sure that they are more secure, especially in the cyber world that we're living in, is pretty incredible.
Chris Stewart:
That's a really important project that you brought up. You know, I think one of the great things about the collaboration that we've done with you and with, Amazon Business Prime, we’re developing security solutions that are really intended to get the best security into the hands of, you know, the small medium business, the small office, home office type of professionals in a way that is incredibly, cost effective for them so that they can have the best experience.
And it's not really just about the best experience about, you know, running CrowdStrike. It's the collaboration and the optimization we've had with Falcon Go, with your infrastructure and your technology. They are getting truly a best in class solution at a very, very, very fair price. So that they can feel really protected because they are very vulnerable.
When you think about it, things like ransomware, if it's a small business, you know, really they have two choices. They pay the ransom or they don't. And ultimately it could be catastrophic for their business. So I feel really great about the project that we've collaborated on, to really bring the best protection possible.
Akanksha Bilani:
Both Intel and I know that our friends at AWS are always getting excited about more projects and campaigns that we could drive. I think I'm super excited about our collaboration for the future with Charlotte AI as well. Did you want to talk a little bit about Charlotte AI and how we're inviting technologies like Gen AI into secured spaces?
Chris Stewart:
Charlotte AI is our AI platform, that's really designed to help give the power back to the security practitioners and security teams. Charlotte has evolved a great deal thanks to the collaboration with Intel. And as well as our work with AWS. And really, what Charlotte is intending to do is– we're getting greater efficiencies and therefore we are able to do a lot of the triaging.
That is incredibly laborious right now, and we're actually able to help deliver great insights right to the fingertips of the practitioners when they need it. It's really leveraging the power of the infrastructure to really come up with what is really important, so that they can make a decision as to what to do from mitigation perspective or follow something that, you know, like a low and slow type attack where, you know, there's just indicators that are being pieced together.
We're letting the, you know, Charlotte, again, powered by Intel and AWS to help really give those insights quickly to the practitioner, make quick decisions, not waste their time going down rabbit holes. We're going to let AI what AI does best, which is, you know, accelerated compute going through tons and tons and tons of data and making really good decisions.
And they only get smarter and better as it goes. So, you know, that's one of the most exciting things about the Charlotte platform inside of CrowdStrike. It's going to make all the different components that we have, of which there's 32, cybersecurity modules, just smarter. And, you know, they're already world class to begin with. And we feel that this is going to supercharge our platform into the future and provide much, much better protection for everybody.
Akanksha Bilani:
Incredible. Thanks so much, Chris, for sharing. We're going to quickly pivot. It's confessional time. Get ready for it. What is the most unhinged thing you've done personally using Gen AI for maybe at work or at home?
Chris Stewart:
When I'm doing a customer meeting or partner meeting or an internal meeting, I feel it's important to, you know, use the word customer and then shorten it to say custom. So if I'm meeting with you and some of your colleagues, the message I'm giving, the content I'm developing, I really feel it is important to be bespoke to the audience.
A lot of what we talk about is repeatable. But again, you know, you know, the people you're dealing with are different. I've been leaning on AI tools to help me determine, what are some of the unique elements of this partnership or this customer in particular, and how would CrowdStrike and or another partner map to that incredibly well?
And I'll tell you, it's really shaved off a great deal of time in the preparation. It's not perfect. We all know that it can be like a toddler sometimes or a, you know, PhD student just depends on the day and the models. But, you know, it's been really helpful in getting, you know, great content built that's highly relevant to the audience and enables me to focus on other tasks.
You know, the tools are out there to be used and leveraged. And, you know, I'm really happy with the results that I'm getting. I'm asking my team to do a lot more of that as well, which, you know, it's going to make us all more efficient, which is fantastic.
Akanksha Bilani:
Love it. I think just continuing and ensuring that we use Gen AI as a mandate for our teams as well as our customers and partners in the future, hopefully drives for the conversation around what we wish to discuss, versus, how we wish to discuss it.
Chris Stewart:
Yeah. Great point.
Akanksha Bilani:
What are your predictions for what the future of the cybersecurity or the security industry is, and how it's going to be leveraging, today's as well as the future of up and coming technologies, in the industry today?
Chris Stewart:
It’s my 27th year of working in cybersecurity. As someone who's been doing business development for over two and a half decades, I've never seen collaboration like this before. And I think it needs to happen at this pace. Simply because, you know, AI is not going to wait for us. I think we need to, you know, put the pedal to the metal and get after it and, you know, pick great partners, like, again, Intel and CrowdStrike and AWS to really, you know, focus on what's important and what are going to be the biggest outcomes that we can possibly deliver for the market to our customers.
Akanksha Bilani:
Ten years ago, it used to be difficult to even think about the art of possible or getting a whole bunch of partners as well as, industry leaders together to come in and think about one certain technology that's going to drive impact for our customers today. And today, that is our reality. So the power of partnerships and the expertise and the ecosystem all driving towards one common goal.
It's never before been so impactful, and I'm so excited about seeing how it's really going to drive accuracy on the impact that we wish to drive for our customers together, in the future times to come.
Chris Stewart:
Intel has been, in my opinion, one of the best to doing that. You've been able to bring together not just single individual partnerships like your company and mine, but also AWS and others. You know, it's not easy for organizations to do multi-partner initiatives. And you guys kind of wrote the book on it. And, you know, it's obviously something that, you know, why we've had a long standing great relationship with you.
You're not only easy to work with, but you bring together a lot of other great technologies that, again, we're solving big problems together and we all get together and put our minds to it, which I think is great. So thank you for that.
Akanksha Bilani:
Absolutely. That wraps up our show today. You've been listening to Rewired, the podcast celebrating innovations at the bleeding edge. Brought to you by Intel, AWS and CrowdStrike. I'm your host, Akanksha Bilani, and I would like to give a massive thank you to Chris for being here and sharing these awesome stories with us. Chris, thank you so much for coming.
Chris Stewart:
Thanks for the partnership, and I look forward to the great things we're going to do together.
Akanksha Bilani:
Let's win the world together. Thank you Chris.
Chris Stewart:
Okay. Take care, bye everyone!
Akanksha Bilani:
Bye!
