How AI Is Reshaping the CISO Role and Modern Security Teams

How AI Is Reshaping the CISO Role and Modern Security Teams

From The Tech Trek by Elevano

March 24, 2026 · 28 min · Episode 650

About this episode

Michael Fanning discusses the evolving role of the CISO in the age of AI and its implications for modern security teams.

Michael Fanning, CISO at Splunk, joins The Tech Trek for a grounded conversation on how the security leader role is changing in the AI era. This episode gets into the real tension facing modern CISOs, balancing risk without slowing the business down, hiring for technical depth over narrow credentials, and defining success in a field where perfection is not a realistic metric. This is a practical conversation for security leaders, engineering leaders, founders, and operators trying to make sense of AI adoption inside the enterprise. Mike breaks down why security has to move from fear based messaging to business enablement, why many teams may be overlooking strong security talent hiding in adjacent technical roles, and where AI can either reduce burnout or make it worse. In this episode Why the CISO role is becoming more engineering driven and more tightly tied to business outcomes Where AI creates real leverage for security teams, and where it introduces new operational risk Why the security talent gap may be as much a hiring mindset problem as a supply problem What actually causes burnout in security teams, beyond the usual talking points How to think about success in security…

People in this episode

Guest: Michael Fanning

Topics covered

  • CISO role
  • AI in security
  • business enablement
  • security talent gap
  • burnout in security teams
  • operational risk

Keywords

  • CISO
  • AI
  • security teams
  • business outcomes
  • talent gap
  • burnout
  • operational risk

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Splunk

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