AI Is Accelerating: How You Can Keep Up, with Frank Fitzgerald, Founder & CTO of Verapath

In the AI: Trust but Verify podcast, our host, Alec Crawford (@alec06830), Founder and CEO of Verapath (https://www.verapath.com), interviews guests about how they are using AI in business, where you can trust AI, and where you need to put up guard rails.

For the 100th episode, Alec is joined by Frank Fitzgerald, the other Founder and CTO of Verapath, for a wide-ranging conversation about the rapidly changing AI landscape. They explore the rise of autonomous agents, emerging cybersecurity risks, AI-powered software development, and why businesses can no longer afford to simply block AI. Frank also shares how Verapath is using secure enterprise AI to automate complex financial-services workflows while keeping humans firmly in control.

• AI Is Moving Faster Than Organizations Can Adapt — Models, tools, and development practices are advancing so quickly that even experienced technologists can fall behind after only a few months. Keeping pace with AI is becoming a competitive necessity.
• Autonomous Agents Need Strong Security and Control — Digital workers and AI agents introduce new risks around permissions, agent-to-agent communication, sensitive data, and unintended actions. Organizations need tight access controls, data segmentation, guardrails, and visibility into what agents are actually doing.
• Secure AI Adoption Beats Blocking AI — Employees increasingly expect to use AI, and simply prohibiting it can push them toward personal devices and unsanctioned tools. The better strategy is to provide secure, governed AI along with training on what is—and isn't—safe.
• AI Is Transforming Software Development — Developers are shifting from primarily writing code to directing AI, reviewing its output, understanding architecture, testing, and identifying what the AI missed. Deep technical judgment remains critical even as AI does more of the actual coding.
• Enterprise AI Is Moving From Productivity to Process Automation — The biggest opportunity goes beyond summarizing documents or writing emails. AI can redesign complex workflows such as commercial loan closing, potentially automating large portions of hundreds of steps while keeping humans in the loop for critical decisions and approvals.

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