In this episode of Life of a CISO, Dr. Eric Cole dives deep into the dominating force of 2025: artificial intelligence. While AI is everywhere—embedded in nearly every conversation and technology—the real concern, he explains, isn’t just about its capabilities but the risks it brings, especially in cybersecurity and data privacy. Dr. Cole breaks AI down into its two primary types: machine learning, which relies on data sets, and expert systems, which mimic expert decision-making through logical rules. He shares how AI isn’t new, recounting his own early work building simple expert systems back in college, but warns that today’s AI is only as good—or as dangerous—as the data it consumes.

Dr. Cole emphasizes that data is the real power behind AI, not the algorithms. Using TikTok as an example, he highlights how data collected over years can predict behaviors and influence markets, creating national security and privacy concerns. He also discusses why big players like Amazon might seek access to such rich behavioral data to maintain dominance in e-commerce. Drawing attention to the eerie accuracy of modern predictive systems, Dr. Cole calls on CISOs and security professionals to take responsibility: every interaction with AI is feeding it data, and that data needs to be protected. He urges leaders to ask tough questions about where their data goes, how it's used, and whether they are unknowingly contributing to systems that could expose sensitive information.