Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping enterprise operations at a pace few organizations have experienced before. As AI becomes embedded in business processes and autonomous agents begin making decisions with increasing independence, security leaders face the challenge of maintaining control, visibility, and accountability in a faster, more complex environment.
“It’s nothing particularly new. It’s just faster,” says Mike Coogan, Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer at Brinks Home. Coogan argues that organizations should focus on strengthening the foundations of cyber resilience while modernizing governance, identity controls, and security architecture to support enterprise transformation. For him, the focus must be on applying proven principles to an evolving technology. Below, he outlines how organizations can scale scrutiny in the age of AI without simply repeating old playbooks.
AI Changes the Speed, Not the Fundamentals
AI introduces greater scale, accelerates decision-making, and expands the number of systems operating simultaneously, but it does not eliminate the need for disciplined security practices. “AI is a 24/7 job,” he says. “You’ve inserted something that thinks in the middle of it.”
As AI agents become integrated into enterprise workflows, security modernization must prioritize limiting the impact of mistakes rather than assuming they can be prevented entirely. “How do I contain the blast radius?” Coogan asks. “If you hired a new person into your organization, you’d put guardrails around them. AI should be treated the same way.”
Strong identity management, least-privilege access, continuous monitoring, and comprehensive logging remain essential components of effective risk mitigation. This mindset reinforces zero-trust security by ensuring every AI-driven process operates within clearly defined boundaries while maintaining accountability across the organization.
Governance Should Enable Innovation, Not Block It
One of the greatest risks organizations face is unmanaged adoption. Shadow AI continues to emerge as employees seek productivity gains faster than official policies can accommodate. “The number one thing with shadow technology is there has to be reasonable alternatives,” he says. “Most folks will try to do reasonable things if you give them a way to move forward.”
Aligning security with business goals means creating approved AI pathways that employees actually want to use. Visibility becomes far more valuable than prohibition. Organizations need to understand where AI is being used, why employees are adopting it, and how security teams can support those objectives without introducing unnecessary obstacles.
“Stopping AI is a foolish endeavor,” Coogan says. “What you want to do is constrain it and make sure people are using it appropriately with accountability.” Governance should focus less on restricting technology and more on building frameworks for AI-driven security that encourage responsible innovation while preserving organizational oversight.
Security Must Scale Alongside Enterprise Transformation
As enterprises pursue cloud-first strategy initiatives and broader digital transformation, AI will increasingly operate closer to the user. “The best harness for AI is the individual device,” he says. “As AI vendors get better at using that, they’re going to dramatically expand their ability to operate as the principal.”
Personal AI assistants capable of understanding context, anticipating needs, and executing routine work will fundamentally change enterprise productivity. With that opportunity comes greater responsibility for protecting user identities, enterprise data, and decision-making authority.
Preparing enterprises for AI-era threats requires recognizing that AI systems will gradually receive greater autonomy. Security architecture must therefore ensure these systems cannot make irreversible decisions without appropriate safeguards. “We need to be careful that we don’t allow it to make irreversible decisions while it grows,” Coogan says. “Humans in the loop are still important.”
Building Security for an AI-Driven Future
AI will continue reshaping the threat landscape, but Coogan believes organizations should resist viewing every advancement as unprecedented. History shows that technological revolutions consistently create disruption before becoming standard practice. “AI is here. It’s not going away,” he says. “The value of it is too much.” Just as previous industrial transformations ultimately expanded opportunity rather than eliminating it, AI will become another layer of enterprise operations. Success will depend less on resisting change and more on managing risk at enterprise scale while continuously strengthening cyber resilience.
Organizations that embrace security modernization, invest in adaptable governance, and build resilient security architecture will be best positioned to navigate the AI era. Those foundations will allow enterprises to innovate confidently, while maintaining trust, accountability, and operational stability.
Follow Mike Coogan on LinkedIn or visit his website for insights on AI security, cyber resilience, enterprise risk, and security leadership.
