Ansible, Red Hat Inc.\u2019s automation platform, is emerging as the trusted execution layer that might bridge AI-generated insights and reliable IT operations, aiming to turn probabilistic agentic AI into governed, deterministic action at scale.<\/p>\n
The shift from AI experimentation to real-world agentic operations<\/a>\u00a0is forcing a reckoning with how enterprises manage the gap between AI-generated insights and reliable production systems. By 2027, 85% of the Global 500 will deploy<\/a> agentic AI for autonomous IT operations. However, most organizations still lack the critical execution infrastructure to govern what those agents actually do, according to Sathish Balakrishnan<\/a> (pictured), vice president and general manager of Ansible at Red Hat.<\/p>\n \u201cAutomation is mission-critical,\u201d Balakrishnan said. \u201cAutomation is the foundation of AI and IT operations. People are realizing AI is unlocking a lot of possibilities, AI ops is unlocking a lot of possibilities, but AI is probabilistic. You don\u2019t want AI agents mucking up your production servers, ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Balakrishnan spoke with theCUBE\u2019s\u00a0Rob Strechay<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Rebecca Knight<\/a> at Red Hat Summit 2026<\/a>, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media\u2019s livestreaming studio. They discussed how the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform serves as the trusted execution layer for agentic AI in IT operations. (* Disclosure below.)<\/p>\n Ansible as the trusted execution layer for agentic AI<\/p>\n The agentic era is sharpening a longstanding tension in enterprise IT: AI can find answers fast, but production systems demand precision. Burning expensive tokens and GPU cycles to patch servers that already have known, established solutions wastes budget and introduces dangerous variability across infrastructure at scale, according to Balakrishnan.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you know how to patch a server, do you want to ask the AI, \u2018Burn your very expensive tokens, burn your very expensive GPU to patch a server, which you already know how to do, and there\u2019s only one way to do it?’\u201d Balakrishnan said. \u201cWhy would you ask AI to find 10 different ways to do the same thing and burn your GPU cost? The cost of creating code is zero, but the complexity it creates \u2026 means there\u2019s so much more in your operations that you have to manage. You have to manage more with less. How do you do that? You do that only with automation.\u201d<\/p>\n Red Hat\u2019s answer is a new automation orchestrator introduced in Ansible Automation Platform 2.7 that unifies three modes of automation \u2014 task-based deterministic, event-driven and AI-driven \u2014 in a single governance plane. The release also makes Ansible\u2019s Model Context Protocol server generally available, allowing any AI tool of choice to call into Ansible playbooks, and Cisco Systems Inc. is now reselling the Ansible Automation Platform \u2014 a validation, Balakrishnan noted, that Ansible has become the de facto standard for network automation.<\/p>\n \u201cYou want to make sure agents can only do things within their domain of knowledge,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only time you\u2019re going to be using AI in IT operations is when you find a new problem that you haven\u2019t discovered before. Because once you identify a problem, you should resolve it and put it into your deterministic catalog of actions.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE\u2019s and theCUBE\u2019s coverage of the Red Hat Summit 2026<\/a> event:<\/p>\n (* Disclosure: Red Hat sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Red Hat nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)<\/p>\n Photo: SiliconANGLE<\/p>\n Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE\u2019s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.<\/p>\n 15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more About SiliconANGLE Media<\/p>\n SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation, uniting breakthrough technology, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE<\/a>, theCUBE Network<\/a>, theCUBE Research<\/a>, CUBE365<\/a>, theCUBE AI<\/a> and theCUBE SuperStudios \u2014 with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange \u2014 SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI.<\/p>\n Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ansible, Red Hat Inc.\u2019s automation platform, is emerging as the trusted execution layer that might bridge AI-generated insights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[179,7493,26660,11153,396],"class_list":["post-43659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-agentic-ai","tag-agentic-ai","tag-agentic-artificial-intelligence","tag-ansible-positions-automation-as-the-trusted-execution-layer-for-agentic-ai","tag-jonathan-anthony","tag-siliconangle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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