At RSAC, AI disrupts the cybersecurity status quo | #hacking | #cybersecurity | #infosec | #comptia | #pentest | #ransomware

At this week’s RSAC 2025, the premier cybersecurity conference, the talk was all about replatforming security, and how AI agents may affect that trend. Interestingly, the push-pull impact of generative artificial intelligence helping both attackers and defenders may actually make people and their insights more important than ever to provide adequate protection.

Tech company earnings showed more concern about tariffs and their impact, with widely varying results and, most important, weak or uncertain outlooks for the most part. Investors have mostly been sanguine about most results so far, with the likes of Microsoft and Meta seeing their stocks rise. And so far they don’t seem massively bothered by the impact of tariffs, but clearly they’re having an impact on many companies, from Snap to Supermicro to Amazon, and that surely will get worse in the second quarter.

Big Tech AI competition is intensifying: OpenAI looks to take on Google’s cash cow by providing shopping features to ChatGPT’s search capabilities. Meta announced a standalone AI app powered by its Llama AI model. And China is rising fast, not just Deepseek either: This week Alibaba claimed leadership with its AI reasoning model, and Xiaomi released a capable open-source model.

What are reasoning models, exactly? Paul Gillin explains why they’re the next big thing in generative AI, even if their full impact is not yet clear. (Perhaps they might avoid sex talk with teens or obsequious responses?)

IBM looks to spend $150 billion in the U.S. in the next five years, though some wonder if it’s something it would have done anyway but, like some other tech companies, is providing a “gesture” to the Trump administration.

A last big slug of first-quarter earnings arrives next week, including AMD, Arm, Datadog, Palantir, Cloudflare, Fortinet, Uber and Lyft, and more, so we’ll get a better sense of how major suppliers are looking at tariffs and the economy.

And it will be a very busy week for events, including IBM Think, ServiceNow Knowledge, Nutanix .NEXT, SAS Innovate and FICO World, all of which theCUBE will be covering onsite, and SiliconANGLE will have the big news.

You can hear more about this and other news on John Furrier’s and Dave Vellante’s weekly podcast theCUBE Pod, out later today on YouTube.

Here’s what else happened this week:

AI and data: Reasoning models, explained

Insights

Beyond autocomplete: Reasoning models raise the bar for generative AI

Satya Nadella says AI is now writing 30% of Microsoft’s code but real change is still many years away

Research shows MCP tool descriptions can guide AI model behavior for logging and control

Or lack of insight: Marc Andreessen Says One Job Is Mostly Safe From AI: Venture Capitalist Because, right, no other job requires “nuanced combination of ‘intangible’ skills.” Yeesh, the hubris of these guys (always guys).

New models and services

ChatGPT goes after Google in online shopping

OpenAI to make ChatGPT less creepy after app is accused of being ‘dangerously’ sycophantic

Microsoft releases small but mighty Phi-4 reasoning AI models that outperform larger models

Meta announces standalone AI app for personalized assistance

Google’s AI Mode in search just got more useful and accessible

Alibaba claims leadership in AI reasoning with latest Qwen3 models

China AI rising: Xiaomi releases new MiMo-7B models as DeepSeek upgrades its Prover math AI

UIPath plunges into agentic AI with development and orchestration platform

StarTree boosts AI agent support in its real-time analytics platform

Anthropic updates Claude with new Integrations feature, upgraded research tool

Writer announces Palmyra X5 LLM with 1M-token context window to power AI agents

Distributed app platform Akka targets agentic AI with flexible deployment options

Dataminr reveals agentic AI roadmap with launch of Intel Agents for real-time decision-making

Acceldata can now spot data anomalies across multiple dimensions

Dyna Robotics debuts DYNA-1 foundation model for powering robots

Sendbird launches omnipresent proactive customer support AI agent

FutureHouse Platform brings super-intelligent AI research tools to scientists via web and API

Um, yikes: Meta’s ‘Digital Companions’ Will Talk Sex With Users — Even Children (per the Wall Street Journal)

Money matters

Fivetran to acquire Census to extend platform with reverse ETL and data activation

Supio raises $60M to power legal analysis with generative AI

Astronomer nabs $93M for its data pipeline platform

Lightrun raises $70M to use AI for real-time enterprise software observability and remediation

There’s even more AI and big data news on SiliconANGLE

Around the enterprise: Tariffs start to bite tech earnings

Analysis

From SaaS to Service as Software: Inside Marc Benioff’s plan to upend enterprise software

Perspective from Gartner: Navigating the future of application architecture: Embracing gen AI, platform engineering and security by design

Money matters

IBM commits to investing $150B in the US over the next five years

Cloud optimization startup Cast AI raises $108 million to achieve ‘almost unicorn’ valuation

Earnings: Tariffs’ bite hits outlooks, and some stocks:

Amazon’s stock declines on light guidance and third successive cloud revenue miss

Microsoft delivers impressive earnings beat, showing strength in AI and cloud

Apple’s stock falls as Tim Cook admits it’s ‘difficult to predict’ tariff impact

Meta Platforms crushes Wall Street’s earnings and revenue targets

NXP’s stock slumps as CEO Kurt Sievers reveals he’ll retire later this year

F5 shares climb after earnings and revenue exceed analyst forecasts

Samsung beats profit and revenue targets thanks to strong AI smartphone sales

Supermicro’s stock plunges on weak preliminary guidance

Cyber split: Tenable drops on a weak outlook as Commvault gains on a strong one

Freshworks shares rise nearly 10% on earnings beat and strong outlook

Seagate stock rises 7% as earnings beat estimates, guidance tops expectations

Snap stock tumbles as company withholds Q2 outlook citing macro concerns

Western Digital stock rises 8% on earnings beat, says it can mitigate tariff impacts

Extreme Networks beats earnings expectations and touts ‘robust pipeline’ but stock sags

Qualcomm beats expectations, but its stock wobbles on light revenue forecast

Confluent shares fall after-hours on reduced outlook despite revenue and earnings beats

Equinix beats expectations in first quarter and raises full year outlook

OpenText expands restructuring initiative after larger-than-expected sales drop

Robinhood beats on earnings and revenue, but monthly user count declines

Block shares tumble after earnings and revenue miss and lowered guidance

Atlassian shares drop sharply on slowing growth and wider quarterly loss

Twilio beats Q1 2025 earnings estimates, stock surges

Five9’s enterprise AI revenue surges 32% as margins expand

New products and services

Intel shares new details about upcoming Intel 14A process, packaging technologies

HPE boosts Aruba security and data sovereignty features for private clouds

Redis ‘returns’ to open source with AGPL license (per The Register)

We have lots more news on cloud, infrastructure and apps

Cyber beat: AI resets security at RSAC

Complete coverage of RSAC 2025 Conference

Check out all the news and analysis on our Special Coverage section. A sampling:

Breaking Analysis: RSAC highlights security markets in transition

Balancing act: Cybersecurity industry moves quickly to adopt AI for defense while speed of attacks escalates

RSAC kickoff analysis: Agentic AI and replatforming will be key topics at this week’s conference

TheCUBE’s day two analysis from RSAC: AI cybersecurity tools spark urgent debate over defense strategies

Security DataANGLE: ETR data shows posture management rising in strategic importance

Palo Alto Networks buys Protect AI for reported $500M+, debuts new cybersecurity tools

Google unveils expanded AI-driven security capabilities and new threat intelligence at RSAC

Cisco unveils new AI-driven security innovations at RSAC 2025 to address growing threat complexity And a deeper look from Zeus Kerravala: At RSAC 2025, Cisco announces bevy of security announcements to leverage its strength in networking

CrowdStrike introduces new tools for blocking malicious AI models, data exfiltration

The rise of agentic AI: CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz on defending against faster, smarter digital superusers

More new cyber services and intel

Nvidia introduces DOCA Argus to bring real-time threat detection to AI infrastructure

Bitwarden debuts Access Intelligence to strengthen credential security and phishing defense

Recorded Future launches Malware Intelligence to automate malware detection and response

Cequence expands Unified API Protection platform to secure agentic AI interactions

Apiiro debuts dynamic software mapping to streamline vulnerability management

Google report finds drop in zero-day exploitation in 2024 but warns enterprise risks are rising

Money matters

Identity verification startup Persona raises $200M at $2B valuation

Veza reels in $108M for its identity security platform

NetFoundry raises $12M to bring secure, zero-trust networking to cloud applications

More cybersecurity news here

Elsewhere around tech: Judge schools Apple in antitrust

Congress passes Take It Down Act to combat deepfakes

Court finds that Apple breached 2021 injunction with App Store rules

Amazon launches first batch of operational Project Kuiper satellites

Defense-focused space startup True Anomaly raises $260 million

IXI raises $36.5M to develop the world’s first autofocus eyewear

And check out more news on emerging tech, blockchain and crypto and policy

Comings and goings

Intel Chief Commercial Officer Christoph Schell is leaving for an unnamed opportunity. Greg Ernst, corporate VP of Intel’s sales and marketing division, will step in on an interim basis.

Jerry Dischler, Google’s president of cloud applications and leader of Google Workspace, is leaving after nearly two decades for parts unknown (per CRN).

Cybersecurity firm KnowBe4 has a new president and CEO in former Trellix CEO Bryan Palma.

Cloud cost optimization firm CloudBolt Software appointed Rod Squires CEO.

Identity security and cyber resilience firm Semperis named former Microsoft VP of identity security Alex Weinert chief product officer.

Former DocuSign CEO Dan Springer has taken the same position at contract management lifecycle platform Ironclad.

What’s next

Events: a very busy week:

May 5-8: IBM Think, Boston. We’ll have all the news and theCUBE will be doing interviews and analysis.

May 6-8: ServiceNow Knowledge, Las Vegas. TheCUBE will be onsite May 8.

May 6-9: SAS Innovate, Orlando, Florida. TheCUBE will be onsite May 8.

May 6-9: FICO World, Hollywood, Florida. TheCUBE will be onsite May 7.

May 7-9: Nutanix .NEXT, Washington, D.C. TheCUBE will be there May 7.

Earnings

A final big week for the quarter:

Monday, May 5: Palantir

Tuesday, May 6: Datadog, GlobalFoundries, AMD, Cirrus Logic, Arista, Qualys

Wednesday, May 7: Uber, Arm, Kyndryl, Informatica, Amplitude, Fortinet, Fastly

Thursday, May 8: Netscout, Appian, JFrog, Dropbox, Rackspace, Cloudflare, Coinbase, Lyft, RingCentral

Photo: Mark Albertson/SiliconANGLE