Kernel Podcast | AI-Powered Crisis Simulation & Building Cyber Reflexes
Welcome to Kernel – the podcast that gets to the core of cybersecurity careers, leadership, and innovation across North America.
Hosted by James Warren, a cybersecurity recruitment specialist with over seven years of experience placing executives, managers, and individual contributors into full-time and contract roles across the United States.
From Application Security to Cloud, AI, and Identity, James has placed talent in virtually every cyber domain, earning 50+ public testimonials and maintaining a 95% Net Promoter Score with clients and candidates alike. Through in-depth interviews with senior cybersecurity professionals, Kernel explores the evolving landscape of security work and what makes a great cybersecurity leader.
Expect honest and forward-looking stories from the cybersecurity industry.
Host: James Warren, Specialist Cybersecurity Recruiter at Stanton House
In this episode, James Warren sits down with Marlow Bryant, CEO of Reflex Security, and Cassio Goldschmidt, CTO of Reflex Security, to explore how agentic AI is changing the way organisations prepare for cyber crises.
Traditional tabletop exercises can test whether a team knows its incident response plan. But what happens when you replace a static scenario with intelligent agents that react to every decision your team makes?
That’s the idea behind Reflex Security — creating dynamic crisis simulations designed to put security teams under realistic pressure before a real incident happens.
James, Marlow and Cassio discuss the journey behind Reflex, the founders’ very different backgrounds, and why they believe cybersecurity teams need to move from talking about crisis response to actually experiencing it.
What You’ll Learn
How Cassio went from software engineering and SCADA systems to becoming a CISO and cybersecurity founder
How Marlow’s career across finance, private equity and cybersecurity investing led him to Reflex Security
Why traditional tabletop exercises can struggle to recreate the pressure of a real cyber incident
How agentic AI enables crisis simulations to adapt dynamically to the decisions participants mak
Why incident response training needs to test people, processes and team dynamics — not just plans
How realistic simulations can expose gaps in communication, escalation and decision-making
Why cybersecurity incidents are an organisation-wide problem involving security, legal, communications and leadership
How crisis simulation could expand beyond cybersecurity into business continuity, disaster recovery and hiring
Key Takeaways
Knowing your incident response plan is very different from executing it under pressure
Agentic AI can make cyber exercises dynamic rather than dependent on a predetermined script
The human and emotional side of incident response can be just as important as the technical response
Effective crisis preparation requires participation across the wider organisation
Repeated simulation can help teams build the reflexes they need before a real crisis occurs
Cybersecurity training is moving from discussing scenarios to actively experiencing them
One of the most interesting parts of the conversation is the emotional impact of realistic simulation. Cassio describes participants experiencing increased heart rates and genuine emotional reactions despite knowing they are interacting with AI agents.
The goal is simple: expose the gaps when the stakes are simulated, rather than discovering them during a real breach.
Who Should Watch
CISOs and cybersecurity leaders
Incident response and security operations teams
CTOs and technology executives
Founders building in cybersecurity and AI
Business continuity and crisis management professionals
Anyone interested in agentic AI and the future of cyber resilience
