The Engineering Leadership Podcast

How Box Builds AI Agents, Redefines Technical Vision, and Balances Speed with Security w/ Ben Kus #230

4 snips
Aug 26, 2025
Guest
Ben Kus
Ben Kus, CTO at Box, shares insights from his extensive career in engineering and AI strategy. He discusses the transformative potential of generative AI for enterprises and the need for a balanced technical vision that prioritizes innovation and security. Kus emphasizes the importance of a ‘multi-speed’ organization to foster agility while maintaining stability. He also delves into the challenges of integrating AI agents, touching on effective risk management and compliance, and highlights emerging trends in enterprise AI.
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INSIGHT

AI Unlocks Unstructured Data

  • Generative AI unlocked the value in unstructured enterprise data that previous ML approaches barely touched.
  • Box reoriented toward an AI-first, platform-centric vision to bring those capabilities to customers.
ADVICE

Ship Platform First, Not One-Off Features

  • Build a secure, auditable AI platform first and use it to ship features rather than hacking per-feature solutions.
  • Make contractual guarantees about security and integrate privacy-by-design so enterprises will trust your product.
ADVICE

Make Security Day Negative One

  • Treat security and compliance as prerequisites, not add-ons; design them before you expose AI to customer data.
  • Avoid shipping systems that can leak or be trained on customer data until access controls and user-based permissions exist.
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