Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
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Forrester’s Jess Burn on How CISOs Can Turn AI Risk Into a Trust Advantage

Michael Novinson (MichaelNovinson) •
August 17, 2026    

Jess Burn, principal analyst, Forrester

Boards, executives and business units are pushing for faster artificial intelligence adoption, straining CISOs’ ability to keep controls in place. This friction gives CISOs an opportunity to become the organization’s trust and assurance leader, said Jess Burn, principal analyst at Forrester.

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Burn drew a direct line to the cloud era when CISOs largely stayed on the sidelines and then absorbed the blame once incidents such as exposed S3 buckets started piling up. She said agentic AI is repeating that pattern at a faster pace.

External parties, including regulators, cyber insurers, customers and partners, now expect proof that these systems won’t put data or businesses at risk, giving CISOs an opportunity to lead on trust before incidents force action.

“There does need to be some modicum of fear, uncertainty and doubt for people to understand what exactly is at stake,” she said.

In this video interview with ISMG at Black Hat USA 2026, Burn also discussed:

Why cyber insurers need better frameworks for agentic AI risk;
How the CISO role differs from a chief AI officer’s mandate;
Why organizations should keep hiring early-career security talent.

Burn contributes to Forrester’s research on the role of the CISO. She also covers incident response and crisis management, email security, and security training, education and certification. She has more than 20 years of experience at Forrester across consulting, advisory and leadership roles.