Conan O'Brien teams up with Adaptive Security to tackle AI-driven workplace scam attacks

Corporate security training is moving beyond regular presentation formats

Corporate cybersecurity training gets a celebrity makeover * Conan O'Brien fronts a new cybersecurity training video series * Adaptive combines comedy and security awareness for corporate employees * AI-generated scams are becoming harder for workers to identify Cybersecurity awareness programs have struggled with a persistent problem for years -- employees often treat mandatory training sessions as routine box-ticking exercises. Adaptive Security is attempting a different approach by bringing iconic talk show host Conan O'Brien into a new training initiative focused on modern digital threats. The New York-based company has produced a 15-part educational series featuring O'Brien to help corporate users understand growing online security risks. Cybersecurity education gets a celebrity face The videos examine issues including phishing attacks, impersonation attempts, voice cloning schemes, deepfakes, and other forms of fraud associated with AI technologies. According to the company, each episode begins with a comedy segment connected to the subject being discussed before moving into the educational material. The production involved collaboration between Adaptive Security employees and staff from Team Coco, the media company associated with O'Brien's entertainment projects. Adaptive said the series will be available to enterprise customers using its training and cybersecurity awareness products. Alongside the celebrity-led content, the company is also releasing additional educational videos that do not feature O'Brien. "I teamed up with Adaptive Security just to figure out what these kids are up to. Turns out it's pretty cool," O'Brien said in a statement. The partnership reportedly emerged after company employees expressed appreciation for some of O'Brien's long-running comedy sketches and recurring TV segments. Rather than focusing on entertainment audiences, however, the training material is intended for employees navigating complex workplace security challenges. AI fraud is creating new concerns Adaptive Security was founded in 2024 and develops products intended to help organizations recognize and respond to cyber threats. Its offerings include security awareness courses, phishing simulations, and other services supported by a combination of proprietary and publicly available AI models. Company executives argue that the threat landscape has changed significantly as generative AI tools become more widely available. According to Adaptive's chief product officer, Andrew Jones, attacks have become more sophisticated and frequent. "There's really a before and after," Jones said while discussing the growing influence of AI on cybercrime activity. "There's the before, which was pre-AI, and then there's the after, which is after AI -- and after AI, these attacks have gotten much more sophisticated." He added that businesses need clear strategies because emerging technologies are making fraud campaigns increasingly difficult to detect and counter. Industry forecasts frequently cited by cybersecurity firms suggest financial losses connected to AI-enabled fraud may continue rising during the coming years. Adaptive points to these projections as evidence of growing risks and argues that improved training may help organizations reduce their exposure. The company has attracted significant investor backing, raising more than $140 million from several funding rounds involving prominent technology investors. This financial support reflects broader interest in cybersecurity products as organizations face growing pressure to strengthen employee awareness programs. For many businesses, the challenge extends beyond producing training materials and involves maintaining employee attention throughout these sessions. Via Variety Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Conan O'Brien joins the fight against corporate AI scam attacks

Somewhere in your inbox, there's a tedious cybersecurity training that you clicked through during your onboarding process and have likely forgotten about. To combat scam attacks and boring cybersecurity training, cybersecurity AI firm Adaptive Security partnered with comedian and Emmy-winning late-night host Conan O'Brien on a 15-video training series meant to help employees recognize and stop scam attacks. Filmed in Los Angeles and co-written by O'Brien's media network Team Coco, the videos rely on the comedian's trademark humor to keep watchers engaged on an alarming topic. "We try to make that training a lot more engaging, a lot more entertaining, to actually drive results rather than it just be something that someone sits through because it's mandatory," says Andrew Jones, Adaptive's cofounder and chief product officer. Founded in 2024 by Jones and Brian Long, Adaptive works with more than 1,000 companies and raised more than $140 million from investors including startup investment funds from OpenAI and Nvidia, Bain Capital Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Adaptive hopes that O'Brien's training modules will "meet the employee where they are" by helping them retain information about a threat that is only increasing with advances in AI.