Neal Bradbury is Chief Product Officer at Barracuda, responsible for product management, engineering, security, and cloud operations. He has led the shift toward what Barracuda calls AI-native product development, in which intelligence is built into the core of every application rather than added as an interface on top.

The thread running through our conversation was consistent: in an era where attackers operate at scale, the defenders winning with AI are those treating their proprietary security telemetry as a strategic asset. They aren't just adding AI tools; they are building intelligence directly into the data layer to stay ahead of evolving threats.

Aly McGue: How do you define an "AI-native application" in your business versus a traditional application? What's the strategic difference for the customer experience?

Neal Bradbury: For us, AI-native means it's built in, not bolted on. The application must be architected with AI at its core. In security, that means observability, governance, access controls, and enforcement, all built in from day one. We have our Bailey AI Assistant, but the core of how our applications work, whether it's our WAF or our email protection, they are AI-native at their foundation.