Turn AI from Threat to Advantage: The Rise of Autonomous Security
Turn AI from Threat to Advantage
The Rise of Autonomous Security
Hosted By
Regional tensions have reinforced a reality many organizations are now confronting: disruption is no longer an exception. It is the operating environment. Alongside these events, enterprises in the UAE and the wider region have experienced cyber incidents that directly tested operational resilience, recovery readiness, and leadership decision making.
The response is visible in investment priorities. According to IDC, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are sharply accelerating cybersecurity investment across the region. Cybersecurity ranks as the second-highest IT investment priority in the UAE, with budgets flowing into both new security initiatives and AI-driven security enhancements.
This closed-door‑ executive forum, hosted by IBM in collaboration with IDC, brings together C-suite‑ leaders and senior security executives to explore cyber resilience as a strategic business capability, not just a technical function. The discussion will focus on how organizations can maintain business continuity and trust amid escalating regional risks, increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks, and rapid adoption of AI across core business operations.
A central theme of the session will be resilience by design: Designing AI systems that are secure, governable, and resilient from inception. Understanding how AI is being weaponized by adversaries to increase scale, speed, and impact. Leveraging AI to strengthen cyber defense, accelerate recovery, and improve decision‑making under pressure.
Anchored in IDC’s independent market research and IBM’s global threat intelligence, the forum will provide leaders with practical perspectives on embedding resilience into security, AI, and operating models—to ensure organizations can withstand disruption, recover faster, and continue to innovate safely.
Agenda
Turn AI from Threat to Advantage: The Rise of Autonomous Security
One Day Event
Registration and Networking
Welcome Address
The Path to Secure AI and Autonomous Security
The Path to Secure AI and Autonomous Security will examine how organisations can secure AI as it becomes embedded across enterprise operations and decision-making. The session will explore emerging risks across models, data, pipelines, and autonomous systems, while outlining the governance, trust, and accountability frameworks needed to enable secure AI adoption at scale. It will also address why traditional, human-driven security models are no longer sufficient against automated threats, and why enterprises must evolve toward AI-driven and autonomous security capabilities to stay resilient.
Autonomous Security in Action
This session will provide a technical deep dive into how AI-driven defence capabilities are being operationalised in real-world security environments. Through practical demonstrations, the session will showcase orchestration, decision engines, and autonomous response mechanisms in action, highlighting how organisations can accelerate detection, decision-making, and response at machine speed.
Executive Roundtable: From Strategy to Action & Closing
A discussion that brings together executive perspectives on how organisations are operationalising cyber resilience in the age of AI. The session will explore how leaders can balance rapid AI adoption with security and governance obligations, while addressing the critical decisions CISOs and business executives will need to make to strengthen resilience and prepare for autonomous threats.
Dinner & Networking
Speakers
Ammar Almarzooqi
Associate Partner – Cybersecurity Services
IBM Consulting
Read bio
Ammar Almarzooqi
Ammar leads Cybersecurity for the UAE Public Sector at IBM Consulting, with over 14 years of expertise across cybersecurity, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and digital transformation. Throughout his career, he partnered with CXOs to shape secure, scalable technology landscapes. Ammar specializes in driving digital modernization and cybersecurity transformation programs across the GCC and MEA, and he has a strong track record of leading multimillion-dollar engagements in the oil and gas, banking, and aviation industries.
Prior to rejoining IBM Consulting, Ammar held strategic roles at Microsoft and the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development. He holds an M.Sc. in Information Security from Khalifa University and a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dave McGinnis
Vice President & Senior Partner, IBM Global Cyber Threat Management
IBM Consulting
Read bio
Dave McGinnis
Dave McGinnis is a Vice President & Senior Partner at IBM, responsible for the Global Cyber Threat Management business and delivery operations. With over 25 years in Cyber Security Operations, Mr. McGinnis directs the world’s industry leading consulting and managed services operation assisting clients in the design, implementation, ongoing execution and continuous improvement of best-practice security capability delivery.
Prior to his current role, Mr. McGinnis held several executive roles in the Consulting & Systems Integration and Managed Security Services domains. He has built multiple successful cyber security consulting practices and has been responsible for business leadership and operations for a global network of Security Operations Centers around the world, protecting the IT infrastructure for thousand of customers and managing trillions of security events, daily.
Mr. McGinnis holds several cyber security technology patents and is one of the early pioneers of the Security Services market having worked in the mid 1990’s, pioneering the Managed Security Services market. He designed some of the very early customer premise managed security offers around Firewall, Scanning, and Intrusion Detection services. The basic elements of these services are still used by all major services providers today.
Srinivas Tummalapenta
IBM Distinguished Engineer, Master Inventor, CTO for IBM Security Services
IBM Consulting
Read bio
Srinivas Tummalapenta
Srinivas is an IBM Distinguished Engineer, and a key technical leader for IBM Security Services. As the CTO for Security solutions, he leads the Security innovations in Security for AI and AI for Security. Srini partners with Product vendors, Solution Strategy, Sales to define technical strategy and solutions. He has a Degree in Technology and Business administration has a cumulative experience of 27+ years. He is an IBM Master inventor with 25 patent awards. Srini also takes a keen interest in IBM Corporate Citizenship program, Technical Vitality, Innovation activities, and contributing to community giveback through STEM programs.
Partner
Hosted By
IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.
Visit www.ibm.com for more information.
