JD Durkin: We now say hello to Matt Thompson, CEO of Transmit Security. Congratulations on the new role, and thanks for taking some time for us here today.
Matt Thompson: Yeah, thanks. Day one as CEO, so big day, but happy to be here with you, and great to be at Money20/20.
JD Durkin: So talk to me about those top-line priorities. Kind of like a president coming into office to say one of those day-one things you’re going to do. What does the first, let’s say, first quarter look like for you and your team?
Matt Thompson: Yeah. So the big thing right now is just accelerating the adoption of our Agent Trust platform and the offerings we also announced today as part of my CEO announcement. So just making sure the team is trained, that we’re educating the market and our customers about agent traffic and agent security needs, so that they can, you know, deal with this new reality that everyone’s facing.
JD Durkin: Well, speaking of reality, we are seeing a new world reality here, a new world order, where AI agents are shopping, they’re banking, they’re making transactions on behalf of people every day. How does that change the security challenge that you face now?
Matt Thompson: Yeah, it really completely changes the paradigm. So Transmit Security really pioneered customer identity and access management orchestration, so how humans are able to be verified and authenticated across different applications, and has built that infrastructure around the globe for humans. Now we’ve got to rethink the entire paradigm about how to recognize what is agent traffic versus human, what is agent traffic versus bot traffic, which is historically bad, and which everyone has built systems to block.
But now we have agents that are legitimately operating on behalf of humans. And we need to make sure that we can tie that trust correctly, secure those agents, and make sure that they’re, you know, not doing nefarious things on behalf of the humans that permissioned them in the first place.
JD Durkin: And I’d have to imagine, as part of that conversation, you and your team are now launching something called Agent Trust. Got the word “agent” being used quite a lot here.
Matt Thompson: Yeah, I know.
JD Durkin: You know, explain simply what that means. And why do you think banks in particular really needed that technology?
Matt Thompson: Yeah, I think we’re seeing a lot of leaders, especially across financial institutions and fintech, say, we’re going to block all of this agent traffic, which I don’t think is a very sustainable position. So Agent Trust and our offerings really help organizations discern what are good agents, what they have been authorized to do, and then what security risks are associated with them. And then make sure the authorization of what they’re doing inside of applications on behalf of the human is, you know, in line with what the initial intention was.
The other thing is, we need to make sure humans are in the loop whenever, you know, something is being done by the agent that might be high-risk. So you probably use agents. I would guess, you seem very tech-savvy. But you probably don’t want that agent doing certain transactions over a dollar threshold that you’d like to be informed about and authorize before that agent completes that transaction. So we’re enabling that entire user flow and authorization of trusted agents, and then keeping the human in the loop where necessary.
But again, we’re having to rethink the entire user flow for this new kind of customer, which is operating on behalf of a human. And I don’t think these bank leaders are coming out and saying, hey, we’re going to block all agent traffic. It is, again, legitimate. We can’t have a posture where they’re blocking everything and allowing anything at the same time. So Transmit’s really helping them solve for this.
JD Durkin: Yeah, probably like a lot of other people out there, I have so many agents, I need an agent just to manage all the AI agents that I have right now. Talk to me more about those considerations. What gets left up to an agent? What gets left up to an actual human being? And how do you go about that very careful balance between the two?
Matt Thompson: Yeah. Well, first, I’d say it’s really up to the human. As you said, agents are starting to become very mainstream and consumerized. And so there are a lot more options for us to use agents to do different things, from financial transactions to booking, you know, a car for you, or handling your transportation. I think we’re going to continue to see that grow, and we’re going to need to have, you know, more trust infrastructure to enable humans to operate with these agents and for organizations to trust them.
So the very simple answer to your question is, you know, humans are going to have to decide what they’re comfortable with. And then organizations are going to have to figure out how they secure that within their applications, to make sure that they’re protecting you as well.
JD Durkin: I’ve got less than a minute left. If we were to look to the future, the next three to five years, if AI assistants are the ones routinely handling a lot of our financial transactions, where does digital identity come into the equation?
Matt Thompson: Yeah, I think digital identity is very foundational for this whole ecosystem to operate. I mean, we need to maintain that trust, and trusted identity, not just of humans now, but of agents. Again, the number of agents on the internet relative to humans is going to drastically increase. And as it does, digital identity, I think, becomes more central, more important than ever before.
JD Durkin: Matt Thompson, CEO of Transmit Security, here on the ground. Congrats on the new gig, man. It’s really good to see you.
