It's the season finale of the AI Security Podcast! Ashish Rajan and Caleb Sima look back at their 2025 predictions and reveal that they went 9 for 9. We wrap up the year by dissecting exactly what the industry got right (and wrong) about the trajectory of AI, providing a definitive "state of the union" for AI security.

We analyze why SOC Automation became the undisputed king of real-world AI impact in 2025 , while mature AI production systems failed to materialize beyond narrow use cases due to skyrocketing costs and reliability issues . They also review the accuracy of their forecasts on the rise of AI Red Teaming , the continued overhyping of Agentic AI , and why Data Security emerged as a critical winner in a geo-locked world .

Looking ahead to 2026, the conversation shifts to bold new predictions: the inevitable bursting of the "AI Bubble" as valuations detach from reality and the rise of self-fine-tuning models . We also explore the controversial idea that the "AI Engineer" is merely a rebrand for data scientists and a lot more…

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(00:00 ) Introduction: 2025 Season Wrap Up(02:50 ) State of AI Utility in late 2025: From coding to daily tasks(09:30 ) 2025 Report Card: Mature AI Production Systems? (Verdict: Correct)(10:45 ) The Cost Barrier: Why Production AI is Expensive(13:50 ) 2025 Report Card: SOC Automation is #1 (Verdict: Correct)(16:00 ) 2025 Report Card: The Rise of AI Red Teaming (Verdict: Correct)(17:20 ) 2025 Report Card: AI in the Browser & OS(21:00 ) Security Reality: Prompt Injection is still the #1 Risk(22:30 ) 2025 Report Card: Data Security is the Winner(24:45 ) 2025 Report Card: Geo-locking & Data Sovereignty(28:00 ) 2026 Outlook: Age Verification & Adult Content Models(33:00 ) 2025 Report Card: "Agentic AI" is Overhyped (Verdict: Correct)(39:50 ) 2025 Report Card: CISOs Should NOT Hire "AI Engineers" Yet(44:00 ) The "AI Engineer" is just a rebranded Data Scientist(46:40 ) 2026 Prediction: Self-Training & Self-Fine-Tuning Models(47:50 ) 2026 Prediction: The AI Bubble Will Burst(49:50 ) Bold Prediction: Will OpenAI Disappear?(01:01:20 ) Final Thoughts: Looking ahead to Season 4