AI is the way to truly scale up cybersecurity capabilities: Google’s Mayank Upadhyay

In an era where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping industries, cybersecurity stands at a crossroads — both as a leverage and a challenge. While attackers utilise AI to launch sophisticated exploits, and defenders must tap on the technology to stay ahead. 

Mayank Upadhyay, vice president of engineering, Google Cloud Security spoke to TechCircle recently about the evolving landscape of security, the role of AI, and the importance of cybersecurity talent in India. An industry veteran, Upadhyay leads the Google Cloud’s platform security controls and products.

AI-powered cybersecurity race

With the massive investments in AI, every organisation is looking for ways to leverage this technology. As Mayank points out, while AI offers tremendous potential, companies are still figuring out the right guardrails to ensure safe and ethical use.

"Just like attackers are getting a boost from AI, defenders have to use it to safeguard themselves—it’s part of the game," he explained. AI-generated exploits are becoming a reality, allowing cybercriminals to automate attacks, generate malicious payloads, and bypass traditional defenses.

However, AI also empowers defenders. AI-driven security tools can analyse vast amounts of security logs, identify potential threats, and even automate responses. "AI can take over monitoring while security teams focus on the next actions. It helps in investigation, troubleshooting, and eliminating false alarms," Mayank added.

Upadhyay, who has been with Google for 20 years, emphasises the company’s long-standing commitment to security. “Google has been investing in security for years. We’ve consistently been about five years ahead of the industry in many security innovations,” he said.

Google introduced Zero Trust (ZT) security at scale, phishing-resistant authentication with FIDO security keys, and redefined security operations (SecOps). In 2010, the company underwent a complete architectural overhaul, implementing ZT security measures, among others to protect its infrastructure from modern attackers.

“In security, you can’t rest on your laurels. Attackers are innovating quickly with AI, and we have to continuously raise the bar,” Upadhyay stated.

Further, AI is expected to play a major role in addressing the acute talent shortage problem in cybersecurity. Large enterprises generate overwhelming amounts of security alerts, making it impossible for human teams to analyse everything manually. AI can process these alerts, identify anomalies, and provide a first layer of defense, allowing security teams to focus on critical threats, Upadhyay said.

“There’s a lot of security training material available, but AI is the way to truly scale up cybersecurity capabilities,” he added. 

India’s Role in the Global Cybersecurity Ecosystem

India has become a key player in Google’s global cybersecurity strategy. The company has established robust engineering teams in Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad, working across security operations, platform security, and infrastructure protection.

“Our teams in India are self-sustained and work on core security features across all our products,” Mayank highlighted. “Google first set up a security presence in Bengaluru 20 years ago, and now our newest center in Pune is also growing rapidly.”

To be sure, this year, Google established its 1.6 million square foot campus ‘Ananta’ in Bengaluru, making it the company’s largest office in the country.

Google also operates two cloud regions in India, located in Delhi and Mumbai, with three availability zones each. According to Upadhyay, these regions can help businesses be compliant with local data residency mandates such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA).

“At the crux of it, this is why cloud companies build regions in different locations. Customers can specify where their data is stored, and we ensure it stays there.” Google’s Data Residency Guarantee ensures compliance with local regulations, making cloud adoption more secure for businesses operating in India, he added.

Google’s Wiz acquisition

In related news, this week Google announced its largest acquisition to date by agreeing to purchase cloud security startup Wiz for $32 billion in an all-cash transaction. This acquisition is expected to bolster Google’s cloud security capabilities and cybersecurity posture in the AI era. This deal comes after previous negotiations in 2024, where a $23 billion offer was declined by Wiz's leadership, who anticipated greater future value and a possible IPO. 

“Wiz is the estimated market share leader in the Cloud Native Application Protection platform market. This is also where Google Security Command Center Enterprise focuses, but Wiz provides both more extensive and complete capabilities (filling more needs for enterprises) and much more complete coverage of Azure,” said Charlie Winckless, VP analyst at Gartner.

Wiz’s capabilities will give Google better coverage in the rapidly growing cloud market. For reference, Google Cloud trails behind its two major competitors AWS and Microsoft Azure, capturing about 12% of the market share. 

Winckless added that Google has been expanding its presence as a security provider for some time. They have had internal security features in Google Cloud including offerings such as Google SecOps (formerly Chronicle), Google Mandiant Cyber Defense (acquired in 2022), and in 2024 expanded their GCP-focused Google Security Command Center Enterprise to provide support for AWS (and limited support in Azure).