IT transformation over the past decade is a story of rapidly improving automation technologies that is paving the way for long-term government mission success in everything from “Infrastructure as Code” to SaaS applications, and beyond.

But what are some of the most effective automation technologies for federal agencies, and how can they use them to better support mission efforts? How does it improve security and where can agencies apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to improve operations? And how can government cyber warriors keep up with the rapidly evolving cyber threat?

These were the key themes in this Government Technology Insider podcast where Mark Johnson, Vice President, Federal Cloud at Oracle, discusses the topic further.

“Data security is a very apropos topic these days,” said Johnson. “Government and business leaders right now are really focused on improving security, and not just end point protection, but the whole concept of Zero Trust from every stage. It all has to have security built into it. A big part of that is automation, which helps us to identify things that look suspicious and bring them to the attention of a human who can then focus on the biggest threats out there. And we know the bad guys are using automated tools that are published on the dark web and can be easily downloaded. This all increases the [threat] landscape that the cyber warriors, the defenders, have to protect us against. So we can’t protect against automated attacks with manual efforts – it has to be automated on both sides.”

Listen to the full podcast below: