Autonomous Infrastructure: The Operating Model AI Is Forcing on All of Us – Main Stage Keynote
Frontier AI models have broken the industry’s release cadence. What used to arrive quarterly now lands monthly — sometimes weekly — as AI systems surface vulnerabilities and generate fixes faster than any enterprise change process was ever designed to absorb. Most organizations are responding by working harder inside a model built for a slower world: longer maintenance windows, bigger patch backlogs, more risk accepted by exception. That path ends in a train wreck.
There is another path, and it is not new — it is simply new to infrastructure. The software world solved this years ago with CI/CD pipelines, continuous testing, and a disciplined SDLC; the cloud providers solved it at scale. In this keynote, Tom Gillis lays out what that operating model looks like when applied to infrastructure: treating infrastructure as code, bringing test-driven discipline and automated validation to the network, and moving from human-gated change windows toward continuous, verified deployment. He takes on the hard questions it raises — what gets automated and what still needs a human, how you build confidence in changes no one personally reviewed, what tooling enterprises actually need from their vendors to make this real, and how the enterprise-provider relationship has to change when both sides are operating at machine speed.
Why this session matters: The gap between how fast software now changes and how fast enterprises can safely deploy it is the defining operational problem of the AI era. The organizations that redesign their operating model will pull away from those still trying to patch their way out. This is the blueprint for that redesign.
Tom Gillis is the Chief Technology Officer at Cisco, where he drives the company’s vision for systems-level platform innovation. In this role, he focuses on helping customers navigate complex architectural shifts by leveraging Cisco’s comprehensive platform, spanning from the silicon layer through to the software and systems layer. A respected industry leader with deep expertise in secure integrated networking and enterprise computing, Tom is dedicated to empowering organizations to reduce risk, streamline management, and effectively adapt to the evolving technological landscape.
Previously, Tom served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Infrastructure & Security Group at Cisco, where he oversaw the global security business and led initiatives to build secure infrastructure within a unified framework. Prior to that, he led Cisco’s Security Business Group, focusing on simplifying the security experience globally.
Before joining Cisco, Tom was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Network and Advanced Security Business Group at VMware, where he oversaw the endpoint, networking, load balancing, and network security businesses. He was also the CEO and co-founder of Bracket Computing, which was acquired by VMware.
Earlier in his career, Tom was the General Manager of the Security Technology Group at Cisco, managing security management, appliances, applications, and endpoint services. As part of the founding team at IronPort Systems, he served as Senior Vice President of Marketing, leading the company to become a premier provider of antispam, antivirus, and antimalware appliances. Under his leadership, IronPort achieved an average growth of 100 percent year-on-year for seven years before being acquired by Cisco.
Tom’s career also includes roles at iBEAM Broadcasting, Silicon Graphics, Boston Consulting Group, and Raytheon. He is a noted advisor to startups and venture capital firms, serving on several boards of directors. Tom holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University, an M.S.E.E. from Northwestern University, and a B.S.E.E. from Tufts University.
