🧜‍♀️ The AI Collective Hampton Roads

From Intelligence to Authority: Securing AI in 2026

Why AI makes security architecture more important, not less.

This is a live, digital-only event focused on how AI is reshaping cybersecurity, identity, and enterprise architecture. No in-person attendance. Join from anywhere.

As AI systems become embedded into security workflows, identity systems, and automation pipelines, the real risk isn’t that AI might be wrong. The real risk is giving a probabilistic system authority in places that require certainty.

This session reframes AI security from “model safety” to architecture safety.

We’ll explore how trust, identity, governance, and control planes must evolve as intelligence becomes non-deterministic.

If you work in cybersecurity, cloud, or engineering, this is how you stay ahead of the threat landscape going into 2026.

Join Andrew Stafford for a practical, architect-level breakdown of what secure AI systems must look like at enterprise scale.

🔍 What You’ll Learn

Why AI changes the fundamentals of security architecture
How probabilistic systems break assumptions behind IAM, RBAC, and traditional controls.

The real AI threat model for 2026
Prompt injection, over-permissioned agents, shadow AI, and why these are architectural failures, not model failures.

Why AI must never sit in the authority path
The critical boundary between planning, policy, and execution.

The control plane vs data plane model for AI security
Where AI belongs, where it must never go, and how this separation prevents catastrophic failure.

Plan → Verify → Execute: the secure AI pattern
How AI proposes, security decides, and systems act.

AI agents as identities
Why agents must be treated like PAM workloads with strict scoping, short-lived credentials, and approval paths.

Guardrails that actually work
Where enforcement must happen:

• Before retrieval
• Before execution
• Before data leaves your system

What “explainability” really means in enterprise security
Not how the model thinks, but why the system acted.

How secure systems should fail
Loss of intelligence is acceptable. Loss of control is not.
You’ll leave with a new mental model for designing AI systems that are controllable, auditable, and defensible.

🎙️ Your speaker

Andrew Stafford
Co-Lead of The AI Collective Hampton Roads
25+ years across cybersecurity, cloud, and AI architecture including work with Amazon, NASA, healthcare platforms, and enterprise security systems.
Specializes in designing AI systems that remain secure, explainable, and governable at scale.

Who should attend?

• Cybersecurity professionals
• Cloud & platform engineers
• Identity & IAM architects
• Security leaders and CISOs
• AI engineers building production systems
• Anyone responsible for deploying AI in regulated or high-trust environments

Why this matters

We’re entering an era where intelligence is cheap and uncertainty is embedded into systems.
Security can no longer assume:

• Deterministic logic
• Predictable behavior
• Clear trust boundaries

AI forces us to move from trusting intelligence to controlling authority.
This talk shows how to build AI systems that can:

• Be paused
• Be explained
• Be audited
• Be contained

Because in 2026, the most valuable AI systems won’t be the smartest.
They’ll be the ones that remain safe when something goes wrong.

Organizers & Partners

## Using AI to Think Like a Successful Entrepreneur

An AI-powered ideation, research, and validation workshop

Building ideas is easy. Proving they matter is hard.

This hands-on workshop is designed to help you use AI as a thinking partner to move faster from vague ideas to clearer, validated directions. Instead of guessing or relying on gut instinct alone, you will learn practical ways to use AI to challenge assumptions, explore markets, and pressure-test ideas before you invest too much time or energy.
This session focuses on how founders, builders, and teams can use AI to think more clearly, ask better questions, and make more informed decisions. No hype. No pitch decks. Just practical frameworks you can apply right away.

🔍 What you’ll learn

• How to use AI to generate and refine early-stage ideas
• Turning assumptions into research questions instead of guesses
• Exploring customer and market perspectives with AI support
• Simple validation techniques you can use immediately
• How to move from intuition-driven thinking to evidence-informed decisions

This is not about memorizing prompts or chasing tools. It is about learning how to think better with AI in the loop.

Meet people and pick up your weekly groceries.

🤝 A casual networking hangout in the grocery store cafe
​Chats, connections, & grocery carts is a relaxed, social-first networking event for curious, friendly people across Hampton Roads who enjoy good conversation and knocking out life errands at the same time.

This is not a lecture.
This is not a pitch night.
And you definitely do not need to “prepare” anything.

It is simply a low-pressure space to meet new people, have real conversations, and casually connect while wandering the aisles and picking up your weekly groceries.

Whether you are deeply into AI and automation, adjacent to tech and creativity, or just someone who enjoys thoughtful conversations with interesting humans, you belong here.

✨ What to expect

• ​Casual, open networking with a mix of builders, creatives, technologists, founders, students, and professionals
• ​Easy, organic conversations while shopping at your own pace
• ​Light, optional conversation prompts to help break the ice if you want them
• ​No presentations, no panels, no pressure to “network correctly”
• ​A friendly, welcoming environment for all backgrounds and experience levels
• ​Come as you are. Grab a cart or a basket. Pick up dinner for the week. Meet a few new people along the way.

​👥 Who should attend
​Chats, connections, & grocery carts is for:

• ​People who enjoy meeting others without forced networking vibes
• Builders, creatives, technologists, and curious minds
• AI, automation, no-code, and tech-adjacent folks
• Students and career switchers exploring what is next
• Founders, consultants, operators, and professionals
• Anyone who likes good conversation and low-stakes socializing
• ​If you enjoy thoughtful chats and meeting people in unexpected places, you will fit right in.

🏪 Why a grocery store

• ​You were probably going to the store anyway.
• ​Hosting this event in a grocery store keeps things human, practical, and approachable. It removes the pressure of traditional networking and turns it into something simple, efficient, and a little fun.
• ​Two errands. One cart.

💡 Why this event exists
​Community grows best in relaxed, everyday spaces.

Chats, Connections, & Grocery Carts exists to create an easy, human-centered way for people to connect without titles, talks, or expectations. It is about building relationships, sharing ideas naturally, and strengthening the local community one conversation at a time.

Come say hi. Leave with groceries. Make a few new connections along the way.

ℹ️ Other bits of info & FAQs

• This is a free community event
• Drinks or food are available for purchase depending on the venue
• Photos or videos may be taken for community and marketing purposes
• Come solo or bring a friend
• ​​​Is there free parking in the area? Yes. If you can’t snag a spot in their parking lot, feel free to park somewhere close by along a side street. There’s usually lots of space.
• ​​​Is this free?
  Yes, but space is limited. Make sure to RSVP