Building an AI-Cyber Dream Team: Forging the Ultimate Alliance

Dina Elikan

At Dream, we are pioneering the fusion of Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity - we've embarked on an ambitious journey to deliver revolutionary defense to state-level organizations around the world through the combination of these two fields.

However, when being such a trailblazer one also needs to build the whole culture surrounding that new market. Here, our ambitious fusion faced a significant difficulty at the start: our AI and cybersecurity experts operated as entirely separate teams, working on different projects, using distinct tools and methodologies, and even located in separated buildings.

Uniting these two powerful disciplines under one roof with the goal of creating a proprietary AI platform that establishes a unified security system, safeguarding assets against existing and emerging generative cyber threats was not the easiest task as they had been operating in silos and independently.

Merging teams from such disparate backgrounds and work cultures has not been the easiest task. We have encountered a few challenges – such as communication barriers, misalignments, and different work cultures among others. Yet, we also found the incredible potential that could be unlocked by uniting the complementary strength and building a true multidisciplinary team.

This article summarizes our ongoing journey of bridging the AI-Cybersecurity divide, the concrete steps that we took to foster collaboration and the extraordinary outcomes we have achieved by uniting these talented people under a shared vision. It is a testament to our determination to improve collaboration and results everyday as we continue to push our own boundaries.

Overcoming the Divide:

The AI and Cybersecurity divide presented unique challenges :

1. Communication barriers:

• Each field has its own technical jargon, leading to sometimes unintentional miscommunications and knowledge gaps.

2. Different Methodologies:

• Data Scientists in AI research aim to develop models that can accurately represent and learn from data within a specific domain. Their goal is to create algorithms that can capture the patterns and relationships in the data, enabling them to make predictions and decisions based on that model. Which means, that their job is to find a way to build a precise representation of the cyber domain.In contrast, cybersecurity experts take a different approach. Rather than focusing on modeling, they strive to identify potential threats and vulnerabilities that they find across different systems and networks. Their objective is to generalize the risks and issues they have observed and communicate them effectively. This allows them to develop strategies and countermeasures to mitigate risks and enhance overall security posture.
• Tools: The tools and software used by each team vary significantly, creating compatibility issues and making integration more complex. Even though tools should not affect the way we work, in fact, it usually does.
• Cultural differences emerged, with data scientists favoring analytical exploration and cybersecurity experts prioritizing fast and actionable results.

To bridge this divide, we implemented concrete changes:

1. Unified Leadership: Placing both teams under a single management structure, allowed us to ensure the alignment priorities and simplified the information sharing.
2. A dedicated bridge: Under this management structure, there is a project manager whose responsibility is to ensure and improve collaboration, both on a social aspect but also by listening to what members in both teams are doing and ensuring the communication when needed – i.e.: when members seem to work on something similar but have not talked about it or when a member of one team is stuck and did not think of asking their colleagues. This person might or might not be me.
3. Physical Collaboration: Co-locating the teams has allowed to easily reach one another when needed, has improved collaboration and discussion between the teams.
4. Shared goals: By trying to align the projects, timelines and sharing of successes between the teams, we aim to support the teams into working together and being able to share their successes.
5. Shared brainstorms: To define the tasks for the next quarter, instead of each team working on their own, both teams were mixed and asked to ensure that all projects contain both disciplines when needed and in the most efficient way.
6. Shared weekly updates: Teams leaders from the other team is hosted and made welcome in each other team’s updates.
7. Research Monthly presentation: Each month, each team will in turn make a detailed presentation either of an ongoing project or an interesting topic for their discipline so that everybody starts to build a common knowledge ground.
8. An idea box for improvements: An idea box was physically offered to the team and placed in the middle of the office; great improvement ideas came through that box.

“Since the consolidation of both teams under the same manager, our teams' priorities have aligned. It is crucial that both teams will focus their work on the same subjects, especially when one team's research is supporting the other team's research. It feels like the teams are now working better together, and much of the frustration due to the previous misalignment is gone.” – R., one of the Team Members

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A Wonderful Byproduct: Redefining Cyber Defense

The fusion of AI and cybersecurity expertise has allowed us to develop an extraordinary byproduct: our ability to anticipate and neutralize generative cyber threats even before they strike. By fusing the predictive capabilities of AI with the strategic insights of cybersecurity professionals, Dream has started to establish a formidable defensive platform that can proactively identify and mitigate novel threat, shielding critical assets from potential catastrophic breaches.

While, we are still learning and improving our platform every day, we are seeing the results of having gathered these two complementary teams together.

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The Path Forward: Human-Centric Innovation

Our Dream Journey has been an eye-opening experience, teaching us that true innovation does not only come from technology but from our ability to bridge gaps, embrace different perspectives and nurture a culture of mutual understanding and a share ambition for growth, we have unlocked the power of human-centric innovation.

As we look into the future, we are forging our own path with our customized fusion of AI and Cybersecurity to redefine the boundaries of digital defense. Driven by our determination and the harmonization of our complimentary talents, we will continue to predict and defend critical assets at state levels against potentially catastrophic cyberthreats.

Yet our ambitions go further than defensive aspects, we envision a future, in which artificial intelligence and human expertise converge to build groundbreaking solutions that fortify the digital world, while helping humans reach unprecedented technology levels.

For at the heart of Dream, we have an unshakeable belief: true success is not measured only by our pursuit of technology, but rather by our ability to unite the power of different minds all driven by our shared vision to create a safer and more innovation world for all.

We realize that we are architects of human-innovation – a multidisciplinary force bound by a relentless spirit of curiosity, exploration, adaptation, and commitment to forge a path where excellence knows no boundary, and the fusion of human and artificial intelligences offers a new area of possibilities.

….to be continued.