AI in OT: Why Humans Stay in the Loop and the Junior Problem with Jori VanAntwerp
Podcast: PrOTect It All (LS 27 · TOP 10% what is this?)Episode: AI in OT: Why Humans Stay in the Loop and the Junior Problem with Jori VanAntwerpPub date: 2026-09-14Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationWork with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/
The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/
This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep123/
The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/
AI is a consensus engine, and consensus on the internet is frequently wrong. So what does that mean for the people defending power plants, water systems, and factories with it?
In this episode of Protect It All, host Aaron Crow welcomes back Jori VanAntwerp, CEO and founder of EmberOT, for a completely unscripted conversation on AI in OT. Two practitioners who use AI aggressively every day make the case for restraint in exactly the places that matter.
Jori explains why human in the loop is non-negotiable: AI shapes a junior's output to look senior without the understanding underneath, so you have to be able to interrogate it. Aaron walks through his own sandbox discipline, where AI gets a folder and not the keys, and nothing goes in that he would not publish on the internet.
The conversation then turns to the OT reality behind AI-found vulnerabilities, why an attacker who can reach your HMI or PLC does not need your unpatched CVE, teaching AI your voice with markdown primers, the build-versus-buy MVP trap, the submarine principle for modular defense, and why an operator flipping to manual is still the save of last resort.
Underneath all of it is the workforce math nobody is doing on air: if one person plus AI does the work of five, nobody is training juniors, and no juniors today means no seniors in ten years. OT's aging-out workforce is the preview.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why AI is a consensus engine, and why that framing predicts where it fails
Why human in the loop is not optional for anything that matters
How to sandbox AI in real workflows: a folder, not the keys
How to rank AI-found vulnerabilities against what an attacker in your OT network can actually do
How primers teach AI your voice, brand, and rules
The build versus buy trap: if a power company builds its own software, it is now a software company
The submarine principle: compartments, modular tooling, and swapping tools without ripping out the estate
Why analog fallbacks and operators keep saving critical infrastructure
The junior pipeline problem: no juniors today means no seniors in ten years
Why the entry-level job for OT cybersecurity is IT
Tune in for the most honest AI conversation the show has had, from the people who actually run it in OT.
About the guest:
Jori VanAntwerp is a two-time cybersecurity founder and CEO who has spent over two decades helping industrial and IT/OT organizations reduce risk, strengthen compliance, and mature the way they defend critical infrastructure. He has held executive and leadership roles at McAfee, FireEye, CrowdStrike, Dragos, and Gravwell before stepping into the founder seat, first at SynSaber and now as the Founder and CEO at EmberOT. The result is a vantage point that runs from the boardroom to the packet capture, from silicon to the cloud. At EmberOT, he is focused on bringing visibility, security, and risk quantification to the critical infrastructure the rest of the world takes for granted.
From EmberOT:
Want to see what is really happening in your OT environment? EmberOT provides flow-first, passive OT visibility and threat detection without requiring proprietary hardware.
Learn more about EmberOT: https://emberot.com/
Request a demo: https://www.emberot.com/request-a-demo/
Want to explore your own OT network traffic right now? Download the free EmberOT PCAP Analyzer: https://www.emberot.com/ot-pcap-analyzer/
Important Links:
Jori VanAntwerp on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jvanantwerp/
EmberOT: https://emberot.com/
Jori's previous episodes: Ep 49, The Intersection of IT and OT: Highlights from S4 Conference: https://youtu.be/OuocvnZsKwU and Ep 29, Bridging IT and OT in Cybersecurity for Power Plants: https://youtu.be/0stFEr6krbY
Learn more about PrOTect IT All:
Work with Aaron: https://protectitallpod.com/work/
The book: https://protectitallpod.com/book/
This episode: https://protectitallpod.com/ep123/
The OT Security Starter Kit: https://protectitallpod.com/starter-kit/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PrOTectITAll
Email: [email protected]
X: https://twitter.com/protectitall
Facebook: https://facebook.com/protectitallpodcast
To be a guest or suggest a guest or episode, email [email protected].
Please leave us a review on Apple or Spotify:
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/protect-it-all/id1727211124
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1Vvi0euj3rE8xObK0yvYi4The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Aaron Crow | Operational Technology & Cybersecurity Host, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
