When it comes to protecting the growing infrastructure at Polaris Alpha, CISO Eric Schlesinger believes in a people-and-processes approach over a tools-based approach. But five years from now, those priorities will likely shift.

“I believe that machine learning and AI are the future to security operations. An ‘artificial analyst’ can replace one or two full-time employees in the long run because it will make decisions based on patterns on the network… and take action for you,” Schlesinger says. The company has already invested in several “cutting edge” machine learning security tools in anticipation of these new capabilities, he says.