Media

Dec 19 2025

Andesite CEO Brian Carbaugh talks about SecOps and leadership on CyberBytes: The Podcast

Our CEO Brian Carbaugh met with Aspiron’s Oliver Legg to discuss his career from CIA Chief of Staff to Bionic AI SOC startup founder. They talked about how a career in intelligence shaped Brian’s approach to leadership, risk, and company-building, the principles and special sauce that make Andesite unique in the category.

The conversation delves on how Andesite is taking a contrarian stance on AI in the SOC by putting analysts, not automation, at the center, and how the “replace the analyst” narrative gets it wrong.

They talk about how crowded the AI SOC field has become and look at differentiators beyond the hype. Brian explains why he chose a company-builder and foundry model over traditional venture funding and why Andesite has invested on security and compliance from day one.

Watch the interview

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Media

Nov 21 2025

Andesite CEO Brian Carbaugh and CPO William Macmillan discussed SecOps on CISO Tradecraft

Our CEO Brian Carbaugh and CPO William Macmillan joined Mark Hardy for a great episode of CISO Tradecraft. They discussed the Human-AI SOC and how AI is transforming security operations.

They delved into the efficiency, accuracy, and proactive threat detection that AI systems bring to the SOC, and the critical role of contextual data in modern threat detection. The conversation covered the challenges of legacy SIEMs, the benefits of AI to solve for alert fatigue, and the sea change offered by a new SOC architecture.

Watch the full interview here.

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Media

Nov 20 2025

Andesite’s Chief Product Officer William MacMillan talks with Politico

Our Chief Product Officer, William MacMillan, discussed with Politico’s Dana Nickel the importance of the CISA 2015 cybersecurity law and its treatment in the continuing resolution that ended the latest government shutdown.

MacMillan discussed the importance of retroactive protections for companies and critical infrastructure operators that continued to share cyber threat data during the shutdown. You can learn more about the conversation and the topic on Politico’s cybersecurity newsletter.

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Media

Sep 4 2025

Our CPO, William MacMillan, on Empowering Cybersecurity with Change Management

Andesite’s Chief Product Officer, William MacMillan, wrote an article for Security Management magazine about the lessons on change management that he learned as the CIA CISO.

“Organizational change management is inherently anxiety provoking. Focus that change management effort on cybersecurity and you’ve made a stressful, complicated task even more fraught…When you avoid the typical traps, build alignment, and act with conviction and consistency, success is possible. That was the situation I found myself in at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the early 2020s. These are the lessons drawn from that daunting but ultimately successful effort. “

“In many organizations, business leaders feel that cybersecurity is a drag on their productivity, and cybersecurity practitioners think that business leaders “don’t get it.” It doesn’t have to be this way. There are principles that can help leaders achieve alignment between cybersecurity and the organizational mission.

“A fundamental principle that should guide alignment is that cybersecurity risk and operational risk are indivisible. If this principle is violated, alignment is impossible.”

Our CEO, Brian Carbaugh, talked with Channel 8 News NOW at Black Hat

Carbaugh, a former CIA operative who was also part of the first U.S. team deployed to Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks, was interviewed during Black Hat to talk about his perspective on some of the industry’s biggest challenges: rising AI-driven threats and a shrinking pool of skilled defenders.

Reflecting about his background, he explained, “I spent so much of my time focused on counterterror direct kinetic physical threats to the United States…But you realize playing out in the background all along are those cyber threats, that are persistent, that are coming every minute of the day.”

“The community here in Las Vegas has felt the impact of these attacks across a broad array of targets,” Carbaugh said. “It does highlight the importance of the conference, bringing together people to solve challenges, we’re all feeling it, this pressure.”

Watch the Interview

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Media

Jul 25 2025

Andesite CPO William MacMillan discusses the SOC burnout crisis at The Pair Program

Our Chief Product Officer, William MacMillan, and Lucas Moody, SVP & CISO at Alteryx, joined the crew at HatchPad’s The Pair Program to discuss a pressing issue: SOC analysts burnout.

The conversation focused on how to reverse the skyrocketing burnout in SOC teams, and how AI can support rather than replace analysts. They emphasized the role of curiosity and creativity in modern cybersecurity and why junior analysts are essential to ensure a sustainable future for cyber defense.

MacMillan shared insights about the shift towards an AI-driven decision-layer built to empower analysts and what is next for Human-AI collaboration in cybersecurity.

Watch the episode

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Media

Jul 11 2025

Human-AI Collaboration is key to secure government systems, Andesite CPO William MacMillan tells GovCast

GovCast interviewed Andesite Chief Product Officer William MacMillan to talk about the role of Human-AI collaboration in national security.

Artificial intelligence powers many cybersecurity applications, and government agencies are increasingly using AI to augment systems in national security and intelligence capacities. The complexities of AI implementation require careful architectural considerations and robust governance frameworks to ensure safe execution.

William MacMillan, former CISO at CIA and current chief product officer at Andesite AI, noted how AI holds tremendous potential to enhance efficiency and accuracy, particularly through “human in the loop” systems that manage vast amounts of data.

MacMillan also talks about the critical role of leadership in establishing international AI standards and the necessity of user training and human-AI collaboration for effective implementation.

Watch the video

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Media

May 7 2025

AI can help the industry finally get SOC automation right

Andesite’s Chief Product Officer William MacMillan writes about how “despite massive investment in tools and technologies, many SOCs still find themselves overwhelmed by the very chaos they aim to control.”

“Analysts are drowning in data, jumping between disconnected tools, and trying to make sense of endless alerts. The result? An epidemic of burnout among the talented security professionals who are critical to keeping organizations safe.

“This has become particularly acute for state and local government security teams that must protect critical infrastructure and sensitive citizen data with typically smaller budgets and staff than their federal or private-sector counterparts.

“Despite this challenge, today we’re seeing states significantly increase cybersecurity investments, with initiatives like the proposed $88 million Cyber Command in Texas and New York’s enhanced cybersecurity funding for its Joint Security Operations Center.

“The root cause lies in a fundamental misconception about security operations. For decades, we’ve tried to impose rigid structure on inherently unstructured problems. Various products promised to bring order through centralization and automation. Instead, they often added layers of complexity, transforming threat hunting from finding a needle in a haystack to finding the right needle in a stack of needles.

The Current AI Revolution Will (Finally) Transform Your SOC

Alex, Thaman, Our Chief Technology Officer writes about the effects of AI on the cybersecurity stack.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly transforming cybersecurity, reimagining detection through remediation. While AI’s value across cybersecurity workflows has been inconsistent, recent breakthroughs in machine learning will significantly decrease organizational risk and become necessary in defense operations to keep up with constantly evolving threats. Modern AI technology requires less specialized data to build capabilities, making it accessible for enterprises of every size and creating a more competitive technology ecosystem.

We have seen AI technology go through four major transitions over the past few decades, all of which have made their way into the cybersecurity ecosystems.

Analyst Burnout Is an Advanced Persistent Threat

On Dark Reading, Andesite’s Chief Product Officer William MacMillan writes about how for too long, cybersecurity analysts have been treated as mere cogs in a machine and it’s time to change that and revolutionize security operations.

“In the battle against cyber threats, we’re losing our most vital asset: our people. While the industry fixates on the latest tools and technologies, security analysts are burning out, crushed under the weight of an impossible mission. This isn’t just a talent shortage, but an existential crisis threatening the future of cybersecurity defense. Until we prioritize supporting the humans at the heart of cyber operations, no tool or technology will be enough to keep us secure.

“Security operations centers (SOCs), the heart of cybersecurity, have become pressure cookers of burnout and frustration. The numbers tell a dire story: More than half of SOC analysts have considered leaving the field, and with them goes the institutional knowledge and expertise that take years to develop. Each departure is a victory for malicious actors, who know that even the most sophisticated tools are only as effective as the humans behind them.