AI is unlocking new possibilities at breakneck speed. Teams are eager to experiment, test ideas, and explore how these tools can accelerate work and innovation. That energy is vital but without structure, it becomes risky. When people “go rogue” with AI tools, they introduce compliance gaps, data leaks, and reputational harm. The challenge isn’t to stifle creativity, it’s to channel it. That’s where sandboxing comes in.

Once, security was a defined discipline—a tight set of technical practices meant to keep systems safe. Today, it’s the junk drawer for every responsibility no one else wants to own.

The trust and safety work stripped from platforms for political expediency? Security now has to pick it up to succeed. The resilience planning deprioritized in favor of speed? Security must step in and own it. The ethical guardrails quietly written out of AI procurement rules? Security can’t ignore them because without that work, defense will fail.

The word security is doing too much work.

And the people holding the line are carrying a load no one team should sustain but if they must, they need to do it intentionally and strategically, because here’s why.

America’s AI Action Plan, alongside three companion executive orders, signals more than a policy shift; it redefines how America governs AI and who it expects to lead. Washington has moved from a safety-first posture to an innovation-first mandate. That shift creates significant opportunity, but also sharpens the risks.

In effect, the government has handed the keys to industry. If companies rise to the occasion, they can drive a wave of trustworthy innovation, workforce resilience, and global competitiveness. If not, we risk building AI systems that are fast, but fragile.

This is no longer a question of whether the private sector can lead on trust—it’s whether it will. And without coordinated incentives or clear guardrails, speed may eclipse stewardship.

The costs of inaction are mounting:

• Trust initiatives that fragment rather than unify

• A hollowing out of workforce resilience and training

• A declining U.S. edge in AI interoperability and influence abroad

On July 19, Microsoft disclosed a serious security flaw in SharePoint Server that’s already being exploited in the wild. It allows unauthenticated attackers to run code on your servers, potentially gaining control and spreading deeper into your systems. This is what’s called remote code execution and lateral movement and it means an attacker could move through your environment undetected, compromising sensitive data or even other connected tools.

Patch what you can. Monitor what matters. And start planning today for the incident you hope never happens.

As AI reshapes global power, prosperity, and public trust, I’ve been testing a theory. What if leadership in the AI era isn’t about size, but clarity? What if the countries best positioned to benefit aren’t those with the most compute, but those with the sharpest sense of purpose?

That theory gained strength at the 2024 Global Action Forum, where I engaged with leaders from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. The conversations were clear: the appetite to lead is there. The question is how.

Welcome to the gray zone of innovation.

Shadow AI is what happens when employees use generative AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and others) without telling IT or leadership. Sometimes it's to save time, automate grunt work, or just move faster. But like its older cousin shadow IT, shadow AI comes with serious risks.

And it’s not just happening in the margins. It’s everywhere. According to recent surveys, more than 70% of knowledge workers say they use GenAI at work but fewer than 20% say their company has approved it.

If you’re a leader, that means your org likely has more AI use than you think and a lot less control than you need.

What if the next strike isn’t a missile over Tehran but a malware-laced outage in Georgia’s water system, or a ransomware lockout at a hospital in New Mexico?

This weekend’s U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—escalated tensions. Iran has threatened retaliation and hinted at strangling global oil markets. But much of the response may come not in bombs, but through cyber meansaimed at the systems we count on every day, our water, power, food, and emergency services.

Read the rest on Command Line with Camille and Contact us if you need support preparing for this moment.