Season 4 Episode 7 : Third-Party Risk in the AI Era : Vendors, Integrations & Hidden Exposure

AI is changing third-party risk.

Organisations are no longer relying only on traditional vendors and service providers. They are connecting to AI platforms, model providers, APIs, autonomous agents, data-processing services and software products that increasingly make decisions or take actions on their behalf.

That creates a different kind of third-party risk.

In Episode 7 of AI, Identity and Trust, we explore third-party risk in the AI era and why traditional vendor assessments may no longer provide the visibility security leaders need.

We examine:

- How AI is changing the traditional vendor risk landscape
- The risks created by AI platforms, APIs, models and embedded AI features
- Data exposure through third-party AI services
- Non-human identities and machine-to-machine access
- AI supply chain risk and inherited vulnerabilities
- The challenge of assessing vendors that use AI within their own products
- Why questionnaires alone cannot provide meaningful assurance
- The importance of understanding data flows, permissions and downstream dependencies
- How security leaders can assess AI-related third-party risk more effectively
- Building a more continuous and risk-based third-party assurance model

The challenge is now understanding :

- What data are they accessing?

- What decisions are they influencing?

- What permissions do they hold?

- What AI systems are they relying on?

- And what happens when those dependencies change?

Third-party risk in the AI era requires a closer connection between vendor assurance, identity governance, data security, AI governance and enterprise architecture.

The question for security leaders is not simply:

"Have we completed the vendor questionnaire?"

It's:

"Do we understand the risk our third parties introduce into the organisation — including the AI systems operating behind the services we depend on?"

For speaking, advisory or Virtual CISO enquiries:

[email protected]

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/oliviaabibayo