An AWS re:Inforce fireside chat exploring the AWS Global Partner Security Initiative in action with partner and customer stories from the front lines
At AWS re:Inforce in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of sitting down with three remarkable leaders who are shaping the future of cloud security for a conversation about generative AI in cloud security. The conversation with PJ Hamlen from AWS, Tony Harris from Accenture Security, and Prashanth “PK” Kuchu from Popular Bank revealed fascinating insights about how organizations are navigating this rapidly evolving landscape.
To set the stage, at a high level, this discussion focused on exploring the capabilities of generative AI within cloud security, which is part of the AWS Global Partner Security Initiative. This initiative was designed to build and scale transformational security services with AWS partners to simplify complexity, mitigate risk, and increase cyber awareness across an organization’s entire digital estate. AWS partners bring broad cybersecurity knowledge and deep industry expertise, and, in partnership with AWS, deliver end-to-end security solutions that ensure customers can secure their data, maintain customer trust, and automate compliance regulations.
How Gen AI is Transforming Cybersecurity at Scale: Popular Bank demonstrates the value of partnering with AWS and Accenture. Watch the full fireside chat from AWS re:Inforce here:
Building Strategic Partnerships That Actually Work
What struck me most about this conversation was the genuine nature of the partnership between AWS and Accenture. As PJ explained, the AWS Global Partner Security Initiative launched two years ago with a clear mission: “ideate, co-invest and co-develop gen AI-enabled cybersecurity solutions with top global systems integrators.”
However, what sets this partnership apart from the typical vendor-customer relationship is… This is not a “we are partners and do things together occasionally, but at an arm’s length distance” kind of relationship. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Tony Harris shared that the Accenture/AWS collaboration occurs at multiple levels, from product development feedback loops to daily text exchanges about strategic clients. These companies and the teams involved are not only deeply connected, they are equally deeply invested in their customers’ success. “PJ and I text almost daily about what’s going on and where we want to make investments,” Tony shared. That’s the kind of partnership that actually moves the needle.
The Three Pillars of Customer Success
Tony outlined Accenture’s approach to driving customer success through three key elements that really resonated with me:
Breadth of capabilities. From cybersecurity strategy through operations, spanning identity, cloud, application security, and cyber resilience. As Tony put it, they’re “securing from deep sea to deep space.”
Industry focus. Accenture pivoted to an industry-centric model a decade ago, bringing practitioners, leaders, and architects aligned specifically to banking, financial services, life sciences, and other verticals. It is clear this foresight has positioned the company nicely to serve a wide variety of industries and verticals.
Ecosystem partnerships. The ability to integrate AWS capabilities with other security partners, such as CrowdStrike and SailPoint, creates a comprehensive solution rather than a collection of point tools.
Rethinking Cloud Security as a Strategic Foundation
PK from Popular Bank offered perhaps the most important insight of our conversation: “Cloud security is not a compliance anymore for organizations, especially financial industries. It’s more of a customer trust. Cloud security is more like a bedrock of digital trust.”
This mindset shift, from viewing cloud security as an initiative to treating it as a foundational pillar, is something I, along with other industry analysts, have consistently championed in relation to security as a whole. Security isn’t a campaign or a box to check; it’s a commitment to starting with security as a foundation, in every instance, and integrating and building from there. As PK explained, “We started leveraging it the same way at Popular as well. We started to build as two separate pillars for cloud security and AI, where cloud security is our foundation and GenAI is our strategic accelerator.”
The Gen AI Security Revolution
The technical capabilities being developed through this partnership are impressive. PJ walked us through how AWS is using generative AI to enhance threat detection and response, significantly reducing mean time to remediation, while also enabling less skilled personnel to handle complex security tasks.
On the compliance side, the technology can quickly identify regulatory drift and provide specific recommendations for remediation. For cloud security configurations—one of the biggest headaches in the industry—the system can identify misconfigurations and even generate infrastructure as code recommendations for engineers.
Real-World Impact Across Industries
What I found particularly compelling in this discussion was hearing from PJ and Tony about the traction they are seeing across different sectors. Financial services, unsurprisingly, leads the charge, with banks exploring AI agents for fraud detection and anti-money laundering. But financial services isn’t the only industry sector embracing AI for security. PJ also highlighted growing momentum in healthcare, life sciences, and even manufacturing as OT/IoT infrastructure becomes increasingly vulnerable to nation-state attacks.
The Speed Challenge That’s Keeping Everyone Up at Night
Perhaps the most sobering moment in our conversation came when Tony shared recent research showing that the average time for a breach has dropped from 44 days last year to just five hours this year. Let that sink in for a moment: 44 days to a mere 5 hours.
And there’s a reason for that. Threat actors are as eager to embrace and leverage generative AI as the rest of us are. “Attackers are using the same technology, the same tooling to do harmful things,” Tony explained. “Your cloud security team cannot be looking backwards at last week’s data and correlating trending. You can’t do that. You’re going to be beaten.”
This reality is driving the urgent need for real-time security analysis and automated response capabilities. As Tony emphasized, “If six months from now, you’re still spending 80% of your time looking backwards on what’s happening to your organization, it’s too late.”
The Human Element in an AI-Driven Future
One aspect of this conversation I spend a great deal of time thinking about is the importance of focusing on upskilling rather than replacing human talent. Tony was clear that Accenture’s gen AI initiatives aren’t about cost reduction through job elimination, but rather on “moving the same cost to doing different things” — shifting security professionals from reactive to proactive work.
“It’s not replacing people,” Tony explained. “I’m going to have the same cost likely, but I need to be doing a different thing. I got to take my people and allow them to spend time on the higher value stuff.”
Looking Ahead: The Five-Year Plan is Dead
As we wrapped up our conversation, Tony made an important point about the evolution of strategic planning that’s been happening over the course of the past handful of years: “I actually laugh when I hear ‘here’s our five-year roadmap.’ Today, that’s good for maybe six months.”
This acknowledgment of the accelerating pace of change isn’t defeatist, it’s realistic. In a world where we’re transitioning from general AI to agentic AI in months rather than years, the organizations that will succeed are those who embrace agility and build adaptable foundations rather than rigid, long-term plans.
The Bottom Line
What came through most clearly in this conversation was that cloud security powered by generative AI isn’t just about better tools, it’s about fundamentally reimagining how we approach cybersecurity. As PK put it, “It’s a rebirth in the cloud era. Cloud security is no more like a waltz — it’s more of an innovation.”
The partnership between AWS, Accenture, and forward-thinking organizations like Popular Bank is creating a new standard for what is possible when combining deep technical capabilities with industry expertise and genuine collaboration. In an era where threat actors are leveraging AI to compress attack timelines from weeks to hours, this kind of partnership isn’t just beneficial, it’s essential for survival.
The future of cloud security is being written right now, and conversations like this one illustrate how staying ahead of the curve is the path to success.
See more of my work here:
Securing Generative AI: The New Threat Landscape Demands a New Approach — Insights from IBM and AWS
Why CIOs Must Lead the Customer Experience Revolution, a conversation with Observe.ai’s Swapnil Jain