In a busy RSA Conference week where you walk on average 16K steps a day (I know because I tracked), you couldn’t go two steps without hearing about Artificial Intelligence (AI), whether it was on the sidewalk, out to lunch or on the show floor. However, mixed in with some of the seemingly futuristic concepts of AI was the message that you still need basic cybersecurity hygiene.
I personally found this fitting since on the day our team arrived in San Francisco we ventured onto an old school cable car (circa 1873!) to explore the city. Conversely, on our last night, we practiced “team building” and took a Waymo self-driving car – both forms of transportation are equally exhilarating. These old school and futuristic forms of transportation appropriately book-ended a week full of affirming cybersecurity basics and introducing new and exciting AI concepts.
The W2 Communications team was everywhere – from CYBERTACOS coordination, to our Chief Strategy Officer Jennifer Leggio’s session on courage in cybersecurity careers, to strategic planning conversations with clients, to networking events, to staffing tier-1 media interviews in the Marriott Marquis – we were constantly on the go!
CYBERTACOS Brings the Community Together
My personal favorite part of RSAC week is always connecting and re-connecting with everyone – clients, journalists, former clients, future clients, friends and everyone in between. This is where our popular annual CYBERTACOS event came into play on Monday night. The friendly line outside the door full of people hugging and chatting exemplified the great community that CYBERTACOS has become since its start in 2016.
This year, we also partnered with NightDragon for a panel on….you guessed it, AI! Our expert panelists talked all about how to cut through the AI noise and some of the most impactful use cases for applying AI to cybersecurity. Big thanks to Brian Gumbel of Dataminr, Andrea Little Limbago of interos.ai, Mariano Nunez of Onapsis, Stu Solomon of HUMAN, Lourdes M. Tureccha of Cloud Software Group and our moderator Morgan Kyauk of NightDragon, our panel sponsor.
If you missed the panel discussion, we’ll be reconvening this fantastic group for a webinar in the near future – Stay tuned!
AI is Everywhere
While cybersecurity hygiene and “the basics” were a key theme, there were several other topics I kept hearing throughout the week, everything from critical infrastructure to threat hunting to CISA. However, it was clear that AI took center stage and permeated every single conversation. In previous years we observed AI as more of a tangential theme, however this year the discussion centered on how the cybersecurity community needs to reexamine everything as it relates to AI.
According to RSAC’s Trends Report, more than 40% of the 2,800-plus session submissions focused on AI-related topics. Everywhere we went we saw messages of embracing AI – AI and the workforce, Agentic AI, Gen AI, AI regulation, etc. The bottom line is, innovation in AI is moving so fast the industry is working together to figure out how humans can learn from AI, how we keep up with it, how we secure it and how we govern it.
The Loud Expo Floor is Back
In my decade of attending RSAC, each year I notice how the expo floor shifts – from the quieter post-COVID booths, to what seemed like a booth resurgence this year. While many vendors question the overall return on investment (ROI) of booths, the expo floor was buzzing this year with puppies, goats, monster trucks, you name it…and everyone was talking about it!
At the same time, many spaces outside the Moscone Center were rented out – a lot of the usual restaurants and meeting spaces were reserved by vendors taking a different approach and using their booth budgets for venues to host 1:1 meetings and more intimate networking events.
Our takeaway – unless you have a big attention grabber at the booth that everyone talks about, we’re seeing that ROI comes from more in-depth conversations off the show floor, ancillary small sponsorships at multiple events or at a dedicated meeting space.
Looking Ahead
As we look ahead to Black Hat USA and RSAC 2026, our recommendation is to slow down, think strategically and prioritize quality, meaningful conversations and unique news drivers. While it may be tempting to put out an announcement or throw out a few buzz words to add to the noise, it’s always the engaging discussions and well thought out plans that carry the most weight with key audiences.
Beyond your news initiatives, think about your presence as I noted above. Marketing teams can stretch their dollars much further with strategic pre-and post-demand generation and marketing operations, strategic sponsorships with smart lead sharing and targeted paid social media to help their sales teams book the right new meetings or convert existing leads.
As you plan for your next conference, contact the W2 Communications team for the expert insight and strategic guidance you need to stand out for both communications and marketing.