Beyond the Alert

ThoughtSpot's Alessio Faiella on Measuring Real ROI from AI Security Tools

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Alessio Faiella, Sr. Director of Security Engineering at ThoughtSpot, sees security teams making the same mistakes with AI that they've made with every new technology: rushing to implement without understanding the fundamentals. He's learned that the most effective AI security deployments come from teams who first attempt to build solutions internally. His approach of running 30-day AI hackathons reveals whether problems are worth solving and helps teams evaluate vendor claims with real experience. 

He's also developed an RPG-style unlock system for AI tool access, requiring junior analysts to master manual investigation techniques before gaining access to AI-powered capabilities. Alessio warns that traditional 2- to 3-year security roadmaps have become obsolete in an ecosystem evolving so rapidly. The result is a practical framework that cuts through AI marketing noise to focus on measurable outcomes like reduced analyst burnout and improved team velocity.

Topics Discussed:

  • The three critical misconceptions security leaders have about AI threat detection, including over-reliance on traditional metrics.
  • Why internal AI hackathons serve as the best vendor evaluation tool, revealing the gap between prototypes and production-ready systems.
  • The build-versus-buy decision framework applied to AI security tools, focusing on functional goals and vendor trustworthiness.
  • How AI hype differs from measurable value in security operations, with practical metrics centered on time savings and analyst satisfaction.
  • The RPG unlock system approach to training junior security analysts, requiring mastery of manual techniques before gaining AI tools.
  • Why experiencing alert fatigue and false positive investigations builds essential security intuition that AI-first analysts may never develop.
  • The evolution toward autonomous SOC operations through orchestrated agent systems rather than fully autonomous solutions.
  • Practical ROI measurement strategies for AI security implementations, combining qualitative assessment of analyst satisfaction with quantitative velocity metrics.
  • The enterprise adoption patterns emerging across the AI security vendor landscape, from basic chatbot integrations to sophisticated agentic automation platforms.

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    Beyond the AlertBy Dropzone AI