Community, collaboration, and AI: reflections from the road
Our CTO Zara Perumal reflects on her recent travels to Google's AI Founders Summit and CBA of Georgia's CONNECT conference. From Silicon Valley's tech innovation to Amelia Island's community banking discussions, she explores the surprising parallels between threat intelligence and community banking, both rooted in daily risk assessment and strengthened by collaboration. Her insights reveal how AI integration doesn't have to be overwhelming: it can work alongside humans to handle repetitive tasks while preserving what makes communities truly human.
Zara Perumal, CTO and cofounder
The Google AI Founder summit was so energizing! In discussing with founders and Google researchers and product builders, we discussed the future of agentic products, the power of fun and creativity in exploration and in this revolutionary time building towards the future we want. Driving around in driverless Waymos, it was an incredible juxtaposition of imagining the AI-fueled future, surrounded by such an incredible caring, genuine and inspirational community that felt so human!
The CONNECT conference in Amelia Island was a lot of fun! In a beautiful destination I got to talk to some incredible people. We discussed how check fraud is impacting banks, and how AI is fueling social engineering. And how to think about integrating AI with guardrails. It doesn't have to be everywhere all at once! It can be integrated with humans in the loop, and be deployed on the repeated monotonous work to free up time for the tasks that you love to do.
I'm struck by the similarities between community banking and threat intelligence: both are rooted in thinking about risk every day, and both thrive on the strength of community. From founding a company to working in threat intelligence, I've seen how much collaboration and shared lessons matter. Being a guest here, it was inspiring to see how strong and supportive this community is.
The closing talk by Don Yaeger highlighted what makes great athletes exceptional, emphasizing the importance of surrounding yourself with great people and teammates, a lesson that resonates far beyond sports.
Next up: Zara heads to NYC for FinCyber Femmes on Monday, September 16.
More than a decade at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity, including early agent systems at Google.
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