Okta CEO on the hidden dangers of AI agents in the workplace

The podcast episode features a discussion with a co-founder and CEO who reflects on the early days of enterprise web applications and the subsequent evolution towards cloud computing. He highlights how foundational technologies like the internet and cloud infrastructure paved the way for rapid innovation in areas like AI, with applications reaching massive user bases due to existing widespread adoption of mobile phones and cloud services. The conversation emphasizes that current technological revolutions build upon previous ones, necessitating continuous adaptation and advancement.

The speaker elaborates on the challenges companies face in balancing established practices with the need for revolutionary change, particularly in the context of a new "identity security fabric" concept for identity management. This new approach aims to unify various identity-related functions, much like CRM consolidated sales and marketing tools. The discussion also touches upon the rapid advancements in voice technology, noting its past limitations and its current potential to revolutionize customer support and interactions across various devices.

Furthermore, the conversation delves into the critical need for companies to consolidate identity vendors to reduce costs, improve security posture, and enable secure deployment of new innovations like AI agents. The speaker stresses that comprehensive coverage of all systems is essential to prevent identity-based attacks, which remain a significant threat. The importance of adapting to technological shifts, especially in the workforce, and embracing uncertainty are also key takeaways, alongside personal anecdotes about entrepreneurship and the benefits of physical fitness for mental well-being.

• The current wave of technological innovation, particularly AI, is accelerating due to the foundational infrastructure built by previous revolutions like the internet and mobile technology.
• Companies must balance established practices with the need for revolutionary change, introducing new concepts like an "identity security fabric" to unify and secure identity management.
• Voice technology is rapidly improving and poised to transform customer support and interactions across devices.
• Consolidating identity vendors offers significant benefits, including cost reduction, improved security, and secure deployment of new technologies like AI agents.
• Embracing uncertainty, continuous adaptation, and maintaining physical and mental well-being are crucial for entrepreneurs and navigating technological shifts.

The Dawn of Enterprise Web Apps [00:34]

• The speaker attended the very first Dreamforce event, which was significantly smaller, hosting around 400 people compared to much larger crowds later on.
• In its early days, there was no AI, and the focus was on convincing people to use enterprise applications on the web, pitching the idea that enterprise technology could be accessed just like Amazon through a browser.
• The speaker ran engineering at Salesforce in its early stages, joining before it was a major company.
• In 2003, there were 15 engineers at Salesforce, and the focus was on scaling the engineering team from 15 to 500 over the next five to six years.
• The core objective was to manage rapid growth and ensure customers were deriving value from the cloud.

"It was much smaller. It was uh I remember it like it was yesterday. The spirit, the energy was the same. It was just, you know, 400 people instead of, you know, 50,000. There was no AI."

The Genesis of Identity as a Critical Service [01:59]

• The speaker's motivation for founding Octa stemmed from recognizing the next major wave after the internet: cloud computing in the enterprise.
• An opportunity was identified to build an essential service that would support the widespread adoption of cloud computing by organizations and individuals.
• Identity was seen as critical for securing cloud environments, making them easy to use, and facilitating the migration of on-premise legacy systems to the cloud.
• This shift to cloud computing represented a massive undertaking for the industry, taking 10 to 15 years, and now the industry is moving to its next phase.

"And I saw this opportunity to build what really would become an essential service if companies and organizations and people were going to adopt cloud computing. And that was identity."

The Agentic Revolution and Company Transformation [02:49]

• The introduction of "Agent Force" has led to significant excitement and visible automation and improved business metrics, particularly in areas like customer support and workflow automation.
• The capabilities of Agent Force, including its advancements in voice, are considered game-changing for call centers and have broader applications across entire company processes.
• This technology can automate functions from product development to go-to-market strategies, sales lead prosecution, sales team enablement, and customer onboarding and support.
• The potential for this technology to revolutionize companies, drive growth, decrease costs, and enhance competitive advantage is a major source of excitement.

"I think the more exciting thing is the all the other places it can apply to and really automating your entire company process from your products to your uh go to market funnel..."

The Unprecedented Pace of Technological Innovation [03:52]

• The current pace of innovation is both exciting and unnerving, representing the biggest platform shift since the internet in the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s.
• This shift is considered larger than mobile or social media revolutions.
• The rapid advancements are built upon existing foundations; for example, the widespread adoption of apps like ChatGPT is enabled by the ubiquity of mobile phones, and enterprise innovation is facilitated by cloud services from providers like Amazon and Google.
• Companies deploying technologies like Agent Force at scale benefit from years of investment in platforms like Salesforce and data unification efforts.
• Each technological revolution progresses faster because it leverages the infrastructure, capabilities, and lessons learned from previous ones, requiring continuous improvement and adaptation.

"This is the biggest platform shift since the internet since you know the mid9s and late 90s and 2000s. This is the biggest shift. It's bigger than mobile. It's bigger than social. It's it's massive."

Balancing Established Strengths with Revolutionary Change [05:21]

• A significant challenge for companies is balancing what has brought them success with the necessary changes to become revolutionary.
• For Octa, this involves continuing to excel at identity revolution in the cloud while adapting to the new "agentic revolution."
• The company is defining a new category called the "identity security fabric," which encompasses various identity use cases and resources to ensure comprehensive security, much like CRM consolidated separate categories of sales and marketing tools.
• Companies are seeking solutions that provide governance, visibility, and control for their agents, requiring a balance between perfecting the existing "fabric" and supporting new agentic functionalities.
• Striking this balance is crucial, as companies can falter by focusing too much on the new at the expense of their core offerings or by diverting too much attention from their established strengths.

"So like at Octa, we've we've spent we we grew up revolutionizing identity in the cloud and helping companies adopt the cloud and helping companies adopt platforms like Salesforce and being that trusted source of identity inside of companies..."

The Trifecta of Customer Demands in Platform Shifts [07:49]

• With every major platform shift, customers universally seek three things: innovation, security, and control.
• Customers desire the latest innovations and do not want to be tied to old methods or left behind.
• Security is paramount, especially given the significant annual investments in cybersecurity and ongoing breaches.
• Control is essential, allowing customers to manage their own destiny and maintain flexibility as technology rapidly evolves and new solutions emerge.
• The ability to choose the best innovations from different vendors is a key aspect of control, ensuring security and control while having the freedom to select top-tier solutions.

"They want innovation. They want the new thing. They also want security. They want to make sure I mean we you know we're spending $200 billion a year as a cyber security industry and there's still breaches."

The Evolving Landscape of Voice Technology [09:40]

• The speaker notes that voice technology on phones is not widely used because it hasn't historically worked very well, often failing to understand requests and resorting to web searches instead of performing actions.
• Significant innovations are happening in voice technology, with new models capable of understanding and taking action, particularly in customer support and call center automation.
• This improved voice capability is expected to be integrated across various devices, including phones, call centers, and computers.
• The historical lack of reliable voice interaction led users to revert to texting or more traditional methods of communication, but this is changing with current advancements.

"I think the reason you and I don't use voice on our phone a lot is because it's never worked very well in the past."

The Strategy for Future Business Growth [12:17]

• The primary focus for the business in the coming year is ensuring that customers understand there is a new way to purchase and utilize identity solutions, moving away from siloed approaches.
• Companies often acquire numerous identity vendors piecemeal, leading to excessive complexity and cost; the pitch is to consolidate on identity.
• Consolidating on an "identity security fabric" can yield significant business benefits, including cost reduction and a clearer path to rolling out new technologies securely.
• This unified approach is crucial for securely integrating innovations like AI agents, ensuring they only access appropriate data.
• A better cyber posture is a key benefit, addressing the persistent problem of identity-based attacks and data breaches that are frequently reported.

"Making sure that everyone understands that there's a new way to buy identity and to use identity. It's not in this siloed world of you buy customer identity and access management and privilege access and identity security on all these siloed solutions."

Addressing Complex Cybersecurity Challenges [14:00]

• The distributed nature of systems contributes to their vulnerability, but the core issue is complexity, making it difficult for companies to eliminate all potential entry points for hackers.
• The goal is comprehensive coverage, defending not just the most secure applications but all systems, as attackers will exploit any available gaps or "cracks."
• The concept of an "identity security fabric" is vital for providing this comprehensive coverage and ensuring integrated security defenses.
• This integration is necessary so that security measures in one part of the organization can inform and protect other parts of the organization in response to identified threats.
• Distributed identity solutions create isolation, preventing the combined benefits of a unified security approach.

"Companies they see identity security is a game about having no gaps or no crevices for the for for the the hackers to break into. And that's the hard part."

Lessons Learned from Company Growth and Challenges [15:06]

• The company's journey is compared to Salesforce's, characterized by continuous reinvention while maintaining a core message of delivering business value through cloud computing innovation.
• The fundamental principle is that identity is an essential component of any technology stack, and the company aims to be the best in this domain.
• As new technological revolutions emerge—cloud computing, mobile, and now agents and AI—the company intends to remain the leading identity provider in these new environments.
• The strategy involves sticking to foundational principles while ensuring seamless integration with new technologies.
• A consistent, long-term strategy that the company diligently executes and improves upon leads to significant achievements over time, as exemplified by 16 years of growth.

"Octa is the same way. It's about it's about identity is a fundamental uh premise and fundamental part of any technology stack and we're going to be the best identity company."

The Role of Education in the Age of AI [16:28]

• The speaker views philanthropic efforts to support schools in adopting AI as a critical step in training the next generation for technological advancement.
• Young people are seen as capable, hungry, and innovative, making them readily adaptable to new technologies like AI.
• Training students to use AI is considered relatively easy because it is intuitive, flexible, and malleable, with fewer preconceived notions compared to older generations.
• Students often approach technology, like their phones, with an expectation that it can interact with them, unlike older users who might be more skeptical.

"And the good news here is that we we have a pretty capable uh young, hungry, innovative group of people in these students. So, in some ways, training a student to use AI is the easiest thing in the world."

Adapting to Technological Disruption [17:15]

• Individuals, particularly in the working generation, must adjust to rapid technological changes, especially in dynamic fields like technology and media.
• Flexibility, an open mind, and a willingness to question preconceived notions are essential for adaptation.
• This adaptation is not about discarding everything but involves a critical and smart approach to deciding what to retain and what to change, often requiring reinvention without knowing precisely which aspects need it.
• The process requires judgment and instinct to determine what should be kept and what should be modified.

"Yeah. Well, I think we have to adjust. I think we have to adjust. It's very important. And I think in technology, it's um we kind of especially compared to other industries that have, you know, have been the same for many many years."

The Critical Risk to Industries [18:15]

• A significant concern is the risk to critical industries, with substantial investments being made to address these vulnerabilities.
• Many cyberattacks are identity-based, utilizing stolen credentials or compromised user identities to breach systems across industries.
• The mission to eliminate identity-based attacks is central to improving security and effectiveness, especially as reliance on critical systems increases.
• The higher the stakes and the greater the reliance on these systems, the more critical it becomes to invest in their security and comprehensive coverage.

"We have to do a better job and that's why we're so inspired at Octa because a lot of these cyber attacks are identity based cyber attacks whether it's stolen access tokens that are used to compromise systems across the industry."

The Vulnerability of Newly Automated Systems [19:31]

• While critical infrastructure industries have long dealt with systemic risks, newly automated or digitized industries, particularly those embracing AI, may be even more at risk.
• These newer industries might not have the ingrained security practices and priorities that critical infrastructure has historically maintained.
• When processes that traditionally relied on human judgment in customer service are fully automated, new angles for exploitation may emerge.
• The focus for attention and effort should be on areas that are newly automated, digitized, or integrated with AI, as these present potentially greater risks.

"And I would argue that other industries that are really newly being totally automated are even more at risk because they're not used to locking things down with the importance and the priority that critical infrastructure is used to be is used to being locked down with."

Entrepreneurial Wisdom and Embracing Uncertainty [20:41]

• A presentation was created for a spouse to advocate for leaving a stable job to start a new venture, which humorously underestimated the potential success of the company.
• This serves as a reminder that even with foresight, humility is important as the future is unpredictable.
• A key piece of advice for entrepreneurs is to involve their partners in the process, as the journey of building a company is rarely linear.
• The ability to embrace the unknown, roll with unexpected changes, and release the need for complete control is the most challenging but vital aspect of entrepreneurship.
• Success requires hard work and strategy, but also acknowledging the role of timing, unforeseen risks, and releasing control to charge forward.

"It sits it sits for posterity as a as a reminder of uh even if you get things right about the future, you're all should be humbled because you never know everything that's going to happen."

The Discipline of Physical Fitness and Its Impact [22:44]

• The speaker is a proponent of CrossFit, finding it appealing due to the constant learning of new movements and its quantitative nature where progress is tracked.
• This contrasts with previous fitness routines like spin classes, where it was difficult to gauge individual performance or know who was leading.
• CrossFit allows for a clear understanding of performance and competition, even if one is not always winning.
• While the speaker admits to potentially taking CrossFit to an extreme, the stress relief and overall physical and mental improvement derived from the discipline are highly valuable.
• Participating in the CrossFit Open annually is a regular fitness goal.

"It was also just the how quantitative it was. It was all everything was tracked. You you went to the you know, I would I used before CrossFit, I used to go to spin spin class."