Building AI Resilience From a CISO's Lens with Commvault

Why It Matters

Integrating security, data recovery, and governance into AI operations protects business continuity and builds stakeholder trust, a critical competitive advantage in today’s AI‑driven market.

Key Takeaways

• AI resilience requires cross‑team ownership beyond traditional IT silos.
• CISOs must expand role to include data recovery and continuity.
• Trusted data pipelines hinge on clean, auditable AI data stores.
• Governance frameworks should integrate people, processes, and technology holistically.
• Proactive AI governance reduces risk of siloed decision‑making during incidents.

Summary

The session, hosted by former CISO Chris Beville and sponsored by Commvault, framed AI resilience through a security‑first lens. It emphasized that safeguarding AI workloads is no longer the sole remit of IT or security teams; instead, it demands coordinated effort across operations, finance, and AI specialists. Key insights highlighted an "ownership gap" where responsibility for AI infrastructure is fragmented. Beville argued that trust in AI outcomes hinges on a solid data foundation, transparent pipelines, and auditable data stores, all governed by unified policies that blend people, processes, and technology. Notable remarks included, "Think about the word trust" and the observation that modern CISOs are expected to oversee data recovery and business continuity, not just act as the "department of no." The discussion also referenced recent industry announcements, such as Fable’s new capabilities, underscoring the rapid evolution of AI tooling. The implications are clear: enterprises must adopt cross‑functional governance models, embed resilience into the AI lifecycle, and ensure rapid, coordinated response to incidents. Failure to do so risks siloed decision‑making, slower remediation, and erosion of stakeholder confidence.

Original Description

AI infrastructure introduces a new class of risk: interdependent data, models, identities, and pipelines can fail out of sync, leaving systems operational but no longer trustworthy. At the same time, a growing CIO/CISO disconnect is creating unclear ownership and slowing response when trust is lost. Commvault aims to close this gap with a shared control plane approach that governs access, protects the full AI stack, and recovers systems to a clean, coherent, and trusted state. Chris Bevil, a former CISO, set the stage for the presentation by emphasizing the "people" aspect alongside processes and technology, drawing insights from his interactions with CISOs globally. He highlighted the critical need to address the AI-specific resilience gap, understand how AI operates, establish robust governance, and ensure a trusted path to recovery.

A core focus of the presentation from the CISO's lens is the "ownership gap" in AI resilience. It's no longer solely the responsibility of IT or operations; instead, it's a collaborative effort involving security, finance, and specialized AI teams. The paramount concern is "trust": can the recovered systems and data be trusted to be clean and coherent? Bevil articulated the CISO's evolving role, shifting from solely security to encompassing data recovery and business continuity, stressing the importance of enabling AI innovation rather than being a "department of no."

To address these challenges, Commvault's strategy emphasizes unifying efforts across diverse business units. Without a shared understanding and strategy, teams risk becoming siloed, hindering rapid and effective decision-making during an incident. The company's approach to building AI resilience involves securing the entire AI infrastructure, including the data foundation, pipeline and processing, AI data stores, and the modern lifecycle, all orchestrated through a comprehensive control plane. This integrated approach ensures that when recovery is needed, the entire AI stack can be restored to a proven, trustworthy state, thereby maintaining operational integrity and confidence.

Presented by Chris Bevel, Global Head of Cyber and AI Resiliency, Commvault. Recorded live at AI Infrastructure Field Day in Millbrae, California, on June 11th, 2026. Watch the entire presentation at https://techfieldday.com/appearance/commvault-presents-at-ai-infrastructure-field-day-5/ or visit https://techfieldday.com/event/aiifd5/ or https://www.commvault.com/ for more information.