Beyond the Firewall S1E5 - Fawad Butt

Behind the Firewall: AI Zombies, Agent Wars, and the Reality of Enterprise AI with Fawad Butt, CEO of Penguin AI

What happens when the generic AI hype ends and real enterprise execution begins? In this episode of Beyond the Firewall, host Shira Shamban sits down with Fawad Butt, co-founder and CEO of Penguin AI and former Chief Data Officer at Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealthcare. Drawing on his experience managing data for over 60 million members, Fawad exposes the hidden friction of modernizing legacy infrastructure and shares his playbook for building a truly AI-native organization. From the rise of Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and "AI Zombies" to the looming threat of autonomous "Agent Wars" between insurance payers and providers, this conversation cuts through the marketing noise to reveal the true future of cloud, cyber, and enterprise automation.