Built For Trust With Nick Lippis

Modern applications generate more operational data than ever before. Microservices architectures, cloud infrastructure, and rapid development cycles have created a world where systems emit massive volumes of logs, metrics, and traces, often far more than teams can realistically analyze.In this episode of the Built for Trust Podcast, Nick Lippis speaks with Jad Naous, Founder of Grepr, about how the observability landscape is evolving as organizations confront the reality of exponential telemetry growth. From petabytes of system data to rising observability costs, they explore why traditional monitoring approaches are reaching their limits.Jad explains how identifying application behavior patterns within telemetry streams can massively reduce noise while preserving the signals that matter most. The conversation also looks ahead to a future where AI-powered systems can detect anomalies, surface critical insights, and help operations teams resolve issues before they escalate based upon these application behavior patterns.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

Agentic AI is rapidly moving from experimentation to real enterprise deployments. As organizations begin running hundreds or even thousands of AI agents across hybrid environments, the challenge becomes how to govern them safely at scale.In this episode of the Built for Trust Podcast, Nick Lippis walks through a demonstration of the ONUG Agentic AI Overlay and the control framework designed to prevent rogue agents from compromising enterprise systems. He explains the six critical controls required to manage identity, data access, infrastructure tools, and cross domain interactions in agentic environments.If agentic AI is going to scale in the enterprise, it will require more than powerful models. It will require trusted infrastructure and clear governance.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

Everyone is talking about agentic AI in the NOC. Fewer are asking whether the foundation is ready.Nick Lippis sits down with Damien Garros, founder of OpsMill, to unpack what’s missing from most AI-in-operations conversations: structured intent data.Observability tells you what is happening. But intent defines what should be happening. Without that context, AI systems are left reacting to signals without understanding design, policy, or business impact.Damien explains why enterprises need a version-controlled, extensible source of truth before letting agents interact with production infrastructure. He walks through how intent management, branching workflows, automated validation, and human-in-the-loop governance create a safer path toward autonomous operations.If agentic AI is going to live up to the hype, it won’t be because it replaces operators. It will be because it operates on a foundation of structured, trusted intent.This episode explores what that architecture looks like and what it will take to get there.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

The digital economy runs on connectivity. But while cloud infrastructure became programmable, elastic, and API-driven, telecom workflows remained manual, fragmented, and stuck in decades-old procurement processes.In this episode of Built for Trust, Nick Lippis sits down with Ben Edmond, Founder and CEO of ConnectBase, to explore why that is finally changing.As AI workloads accelerate and enterprise architectures shift toward multi-cloud and distributed environments, legacy WAN procurement models are being exposed. Spreadsheets, slow RFP cycles, and opaque serviceability data simply cannot support the demands of the AI economy.Nick and Ben discuss:The four structural shifts forcing telecom modernizationWhy automation increases growth rather than eroding marginsThe rise of programmable connectivity and API-driven exchangesHow AI is exposing bandwidth, latency, and procurement limitationsWhy control is flowing back to the enterpriseFrom wholesale marketplaces to enterprise WAN estate intelligence, this conversation outlines how telecom is evolving from a relationship-driven industry to a programmable platform.The AI economy is here. Now telecom has to catch up.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode of the Built for Trust Podcast, Nick Lippis breaks down the real barriers preventing large enterprises from deploying agentic AI at scale.After gathering direct input from enterprise leaders across the ONUG community, a clear pattern emerged: the blockers are not model performance or innovation. They are trust, security, and governance.Nick outlines the prioritized requirements enterprises say must be solved before agentic AI can move from experimentation to production. From non-human identity and lifecycle management to runtime behavior enforcement, data and content guardrails, zero trust across multiple trust domains, and secure orchestration, this episode reframes the conversation around what truly matters for scalable adoption.If your organization is exploring AI agents but struggling with control, compliance, or cross-domain risk, this episode defines the problem set and the path forward.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

As enterprises rush to prepare for AI, most of the attention is focused on models, GPUs, and applications. But what if the real starting point isn’t AI at all?In this episode of the Built for Trust Podcast, Nick Lippis sits down with Patrick Heinz from Ameriprise to explore why observability is the true foundation of AI-ready infrastructure. Patrick draws on decades of experience spanning service providers, startups, and large enterprises to explain why AI systems depend on continuous, high-quality data and why visibility across networks, applications, and service providers is no longer optional.The conversation dives into synthetic path monitoring, breaking down data silos, contextualizing massive volumes of telemetry, and how “data without context is dangerous.” Patrick also shares real-world examples of how improved visibility builds trust with users, operations teams, and service providers while reducing outages, escalations, and firefighting.If you’re thinking about AI readiness, automation, or agentic systems, this episode makes one thing clear: you can’t automate what you can’t see, and trust starts with visibility.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode of Built for Trust, Nick Lippis shares firsthand observations from ongoing conversations with enterprise IT leaders and technology providers across the industry.Nick explores the growing divide between AI-first enterprises that are moving aggressively into large-scale deployments and organizations that are still evaluating where AI fits, how to justify the investment, and how to manage risk. He unpacks why some enterprises remain quiet about their AI initiatives, how concerns around GPUs, cost, and power are shaping infrastructure decisions, and what’s driving the shift toward cloud-based versus on-prem AI strategies.The discussion also dives into how security and networking are becoming native components of AI infrastructure, why the control plane for agentic AI remains undefined, and how incumbent enterprise vendors are repositioning to close the gap between ambition and execution.This episode offers a grounded look at where enterprise AI really stands today, not the hype, but the reality from the field.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

Most companies are experimenting with AI in customer experience. Very few are actually transforming it.In this episode of Built for Trust, Nick Lippis is joined by Puneet Mehta, Founder and CEO of Netomi, to explore what it really takes to design AI-driven customer experience that works in the real world at enterprise scale, under regulatory constraints, and without breaking trust.Puneet shares why simply automating human workflows misses most of AI’s value, and how agentic AI enables a shift from reactive support to proactive, context-driven customer engagement. Drawing on real-world deployments with companies like DraftKings and United Airlines, the conversation dives into how enterprises can safely orchestrate AI across siloed systems, manage authority and compliance, and deliver faster, more empathetic customer experiences.The discussion also looks ahead to a future where AI becomes the primary customer interface and where AI agents may soon interact directly with other AI agents on behalf of consumers. For enterprise leaders navigating trust, governance, and transformation, this episode offers a grounded look at what agentic AI means beyond the hype.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

Agentic AI is redefining how work gets done. But without the right architecture and controls, autonomy becomes risk.In this episode, Nick sits down with Peter Campbell to explore the emerging Agentic AI Overlay and what enterprises must build to support secure, scalable agentic workflows. From multi-agent communication and trust boundaries to identity, governance, and responsible AI enforcement, they examine the critical building blocks required to move from AI experimentation to production-ready systems.The conversation also highlights early findings from ONUG community polling and outlines what’s next as the industry works to turn architecture into action.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode, Nick reviews lessons from 2025 that shift from POC to production in enterprise AI. Then he discusses key predictions for 2026 and discusses why it is such a pivotal year for enterprises to embrace AI. New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

When a model learns your secrets, it never forgets.In this episode, Nick sits down with Tom Gillis from Cisco to explore one of the most pressing challenges of the AI era: data sovereignty. As AI models absorb sensitive information and operational data at unprecedented scale, organizations are facing a new reality: once that knowledge is embedded, it can’t simply be erased.Tom unpacks how Cisco is reimagining the data center for this new world from GPU-driven architectures and co-packaged optics to federated analytics that bring computation to the data instead of the other way around. Together, they discuss the return of on-prem infrastructure, the risks of IP leakage in model training, and why protecting data sovereignty may be the defining trust challenge of enterprise AI.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode, Nick sits down with David Reilly from World Wide Technology to explore how trust and structure must guide every AI transformation. Riley shares the five-question framework he used to evaluate technology decisions, from cost and reliability to risk and talent, and why it’s more critical than ever as enterprises race to adopt AI. Together, they discuss how CIOs can balance innovation with stability, build confidence with business partners, and lead teams through change without losing trust along the way.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

Hyperscalers have redefined what modern networking looks like, and now those same principles are reshaping how enterprises build for the AI era.In this episode, Nick sits down with Marc Austin from Hedgehog to explore how open networking, SONiC, and cloud native automation are converging to make hyperscaler level networking accessible to organizations of any size.Marc shares Hedgehog’s origin story, why SONiC has finally matured for enterprise scale, and how cloud style UX and zero touch lifecycle management remove the historical barriers to open networking. They explore the rise of AI Networking as a new category, the complexity of GPU fabrics, and how automation and performance tuning can even outperform some NVIDIA reference benchmarks.From multi-vendor freedom to real world AI cloud deployments operated by a single DevOps engineer, this conversation reveals the technologies and design principles that are powering the next generation of private AI infrastructure.If you are building for AI, rethinking your network strategy, or interested in the future of open networking, this episode shows what it really takes to network like a hyperscaler.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

AI is advancing fast, but the networks underneath it aren’t. In this episode, Nick and Andy Bechtolsheim from Arista Networks break down the real bottleneck slowing AI performance and why traditional networking models can’t keep up with today’s training and inference demands.They explore what Ultra Ethernet brings to the table, why packet loss and traffic scheduling matter more than ever, and what enterprises actually need to build AI-ready infrastructure without hyperscaler budgets. Andy also shares why he believes we’ve finally hit the hardware tipping point that will accelerate AI innovation for years to come.A clear, candid look at the networking challenges shaping the future of AI and what leaders need to prepare for next.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode of Built for Trust, host Nick Lippis talks with Holland Barry, Global Field CTO at DXC Technology, about how AI is transforming the way enterprises identify, measure, and manage technical debt. What was once a cost of doing business is now becoming a catalyst for modernization. Holland shares how DXC is developing a Tech Debt Scoring System that uses AI and community collaboration to benchmark enterprise health, reveal modernization priorities, and accelerate AI readiness. Together, they explore how this data-driven approach turns maintenance into momentum and trust into a measurable outcome.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode of Built for Trust, host Nick Lippis sits down with Ben Hickey of IBM to explore how AI is transforming network operations, automation, and lifecycle management, and why trust is the defining factor in every stage of that journey. Together, they unpack what it takes to build truly autonomous systems, from improving signal-to-noise ratios in data to establishing “LLM scaffolding” that keeps AI outputs reliable and safe. Ben explains how IBM’s approach empowers engineers to move from reactive troubleshooting to predictive insight, bridging analytics and reasoning in systems designed for resilience.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode of Built for Trust, host Nick Lippis is joined by Jason Edelman, founder of Network to Code, for a conversation about the evolution of network automation and the rise of AI-driven operations. Together, they explore how enterprises are moving from scripts and workflows to multi-agent systems capable of managing complex infrastructures. Jason shares how data, skills, and culture are shaping this next chapter, and why trust in automation still begins with people. As networks grow more intelligent, the question isn’t whether AI will run them: it’s how humans will stay meaningfully in the loop.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode of Built for Trust, host Nick Lippis sits down with Ritesh Agrawal from Zscaler, to explore how AI is reshaping the future of cybersecurity. Together, they discuss how artificial intelligence is not only a new target but also a new line of defense.They examine why Zero Trust is essential as AI systems gain autonomy, how identity and policy evolve in a world of intelligent agents, and what it will take for organizations to build infrastructures that can protect themselves.Hear insights on:The relationship between AI for security and security for AIHow autonomous agents are changing identity, access, and controlWays to embed protection directly into AI decision loopsWhat it means to trust machines that act on their ownNew episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode of Built for Trust, host Nick Lippis sits down with Susie Wee, founder and CEO of DevAI and creator of Cisco DevNet, to explore what happens when human expertise meets artificial intelligence.From her early work pioneering HDTV to leading global developer communities and now building AI powered solutions for IT teams, Susie has always seen technology as more than innovation. It is about people, purpose, and possibility.Together, Nick and Susie discuss:How DevAI is helping IT professionals harness AI without replacing human judgmentWhy domain expertise is the key differentiator in the AI eraThe evolution from DevNet to DevAI and what it teaches us about building communities that adapt and thriveThe future of enterprise automation and why trust, not tools, will define successThis is a conversation about innovation with empathy and a reminder that the future of AI is not just intelligent. It is human.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!

In this episode of Built for Trust, host Nick Lippis sits down with Chalan Aras to explore how AI is reshaping the future of networking and IT operations. From the rise of observability and automation to the challenges of multi-cloud sprawl and massive data movement, they unpack why only a fraction of AI projects succeed and what enterprises must do to close the gap between ambition and readiness.Looking ahead to 2030, Chalan shares his vision of autonomous, AI-native networks—where agentic operations centers, security-first design, and dynamic data fabrics replace today’s static systems. Along the way, Nick and Chalan examine the risks, opportunities, and real-world lessons every enterprise leader should consider as AI drives the next era of connectivity.New episodes of the Built for Trust Podcast come out every Thursday. Subscribe to get notified. See you next week!