2026 Zscaler Public Sector Summit: Cyber Strong in the AI Era

The 2026 Zscaler Public Sector Summit marks a homecoming for me and several others here at Zscaler who have recently hung up their federal spurs, and I feel a renewed sense of passion for the mission.

I find myself reflecting on the common thread that binds Zscaler and the varied operational communities we support: the mission. Having recently retired from the front lines of government IT, I understand that our “customers” aren’t just users; they are the American people, all focused on protecting our country. 

Today, we stand at a critical juncture in the AI journey for our great nation. With a robust “America’s AI Action Plan,” our government is moving past the “pilot” phase of generative AI and entering a period of deep integration. However, as we weave AI into the fabric of government operations, we must ensure that the fabric itself is “Cyber Strong.”

We are no longer “preparing” for AI or adversarial use of this new technology. We are in the midst of an active race. We are also realizing that while these systems are revolutionary defensive force multipliers, they are simultaneously becoming high-value targets. Our adversaries, nation-states with deep pockets and sophisticated AI capabilities, are leveraging technology at a rate that traditional defenses cannot match. The new “AI-powered script kiddies,” using large language models (LLMs) to generate, refine, and deploy malicious code without understanding the underlying mechanics, are accelerating that challenge.

We are also seeing this in our recent ThreatLabz 2026 AI Security Report. From April 2024 to April 2025 alone, the Zscaler cloud blocked more ransomware attempts than in any previous year. That was more than 10.8 million hits, marking a 145.9% year-over-year increase and the highest volume recorded since tracking began. In the same year, the scale of AI/ML activity increased dramatically to 536,500,000,000 total AI/ML transactions, marking a 3,464.6% year-over-year surge across the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, compared to our last analysis period.

To stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated adversarial AI, deploying AI isn’t enough. We must ensure that every model in a safety-, critical-, or high-value role is built on a foundation of secure-by-design and resilient architecture. True cyber strength in the AI era requires systems that are not only robust but actively instrumented to detect data integrity and performance shifts, “sensing” and ensuring we can identify and neutralize malicious activity before it compromises the mission.

This March, we gather at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, a location that holds significant personal meaning for me. Did you know it is the second-largest building in the federal inventory? It is literally a city within a city. At over 3 million square feet full of offices near the White House, it is the only federal building congressionally mandated to be a mixed-use building open to the public, effectively uniting the nation’s best public and private resources in a national forum for the advancement of trade, serving a uniquely dual mission that presents inherent security challenges. It serves as a perfect metaphor for our current technology challenge: securing a vast, interconnected digital landscape where the boundaries between “inside” and “outside” have effectively vanished—especially in the food court!

The human element also comes front and center for this event. In the new digital age, securing the tech is only half the battle; we must also secure the “human” landscape. This is why I am particularly excited to welcome Eric O’Neill to our stage. Eric helped expose Robert Hanssen, a man who operated from within the very heart of our national security apparatus. It’s a stark reminder that the greatest threats often come from within, using a PalmPilot, no less.

Eric’s insights into counterintelligence are more relevant now than ever. Adversarial AI is being used to craft social engineering attacks so convincing they bypass traditional human intuition. We must fight fire with fire. In 2026, the “insider” might not be a person at all, but a compromised AI agent or a deepfake identity. Eric will bridge the gap between “old school” counterintelligence and “new school” AI threats. His experience reminds us that while the tools change, the adversary’s intent remains the same: to undermine public trust and compromise our national security.

Walking through the Reagan Building, above or below ground, always reminds me of the scale of our government’s responsibility. It is a place of history, but also a place of the future. As we open the 2026 Public Sector Summit, my message to my peers in the public sector is simple: the journey to Zero Trust, and now AI, is a journey of security. We cannot have one without the other.

Join us on March 3, 2026. We will not just be talking about surviving the AI revolution; together with our partners, we will show how we will lead it - together. Let’s forge a nation that is not just cyber-aware, but Cyber Strong.