Can AI finally bridge the 30-year gap between IT and OT?

In this episode of the Zero-in podcast, host Olivier Bloch sits down with Adam Bogobowicz (Microsoft) and Marvin Tansley (Thing-Zero) to discuss the reality of AI in manufacturing.

While everyone "wants" AI, very few companies understand how to merge the precision of the factory floor (OT) with the scale of the cloud (IT).

During the conversation, we zero-in on four key subjects:

- The Frontier Company: What separates leaders from laggards in the AI era

- Pilot Purgatory: Why industrial AI projects stall and how to focus on ROI

- Agentic AI: Moving beyond chatbots to proactive, autonomous systems.

- The Security Guardrails: How to maintain safety while giving AI agency.

AI isn't the panacea; it’s the tool. The real magic happens when you ground AI in the context of your people, your processes, and your business rules.

Chapters:

0:00 The "Don't" of Frontier Companies

0:17 Introduction: The IT vs. OT Problem

1:49 Meet the Experts

3:21 The Goal: Better Decision Making

5:19 The Blockers: Scaling Beyond the Dashboard

6:50 The Clash of Cultures

9:12 Governing at Scale

13:07 Escaping Pilot Purgatory

15:42 Context is King

18:49 The Secret Ingredients for Success

22:08 Replicability as a Strategy

23:54 Demystifying Agentic AI

27:02 Trust, Risk, and the Human in the Loop

32:34 Deterministic vs. Statistical Models

36:22 Closing Advice: Don't Lead with AI

🎧 Brought to you by Thing-Zero — Secure. Predict. Augment. Automate.

📌 Follow Adam Bogobowicz on LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambogobowicz/

📌 Follow Olivier Bloch on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivierbloch/

📌 Follow Marvin Tansley on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marvin-tansley-a914551/

Follow Thing-Zero on:

- YouTube: YouTube.com/@Thing-Zero

- Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/thing-zero

- 𝕏: https://x.com/ThingZ96954

- Web: https://www.Thing-Zero.com

#Microsoft #AI #manufacturing

Before you can secure your OT network, you have to understand it.

In this episode of the Zeroed-In Podcast, our host Olivier Bloch sits down with Dan Frechette, OT security expert and former member of the CyberX Labs team (now Microsoft Defender for IoT).

Together, they unpack the fundamentals of OT visibility, asset discovery, and passive network monitoring. They also cover how modern tools like Microsoft Defender for IoT help organizations identify risks before attackers exploit them.

Topics Include:

• Why you can’t secure what you don’t know exists

• The critical differences between IT and OT networks

• Real-world OT cyberattacks like TRITON

• How to passively discover every device in your plant network

• Why security may actually bridge IT and OT, not divide them

If you work in manufacturing, utilities, or industrial cybersecurity... this is your crash course in understanding what’s really running on your network, and how to defend it.

Subscribe for more conversations on Industrial IoT, OT Security, and AI in Manufacturing.

⏱ Chapters

00:00 Intro: Understanding OT Infrastructure

01:42 Dan Frechette’s Background in OT Security

03:30 Why You Can’t Secure What You Don’t Know

06:15 The Old “Air Gap” Myth and Why It’s Failing

09:10 IT vs OT: The Two Worlds Explained

13:25 Real OT Attack Stories (TRITON, Oldsmar, etc.)

18:20 How to Map Your OT Network Passively

22:10 Monitoring and Detecting Anomalies

27:15 Defender for IoT: Setup and First Results

31:40 Bridging the IT/OT Divide with Security

36:00 Final Takeaways

🎧 Brought to you by Thing-Zero: Secure. Predict. Augment. Automate.

📌 Follow Olivier Bloch on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marvin-tansley-a914551/

📌 Follow Dan Frechette on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-frechette/

Follow Thing-Zero on:

- YouTube: YouTube.com/@thing-zero

- Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/thing-zero

- 𝕏: https://x.com/ThingZ96954

- Web: https://www.Thing-Zero.com

#IoT #OT #MicrosoftSecurity #DefenderForIoT #manufacturing

In this episode of The Zeroed-In Podcast by Thing-Zero, we sit down with Kudzai Manditereza from HiveMQ and founder of Industry40tv, to get practical about data in manufacturing. We dig into MQTT’s real job in the stack, how to bridge OT and IT without breaking culture, and why a Unified Namespace is the backbone for reliable analytics and AI at scale.

We talk with Kudzai about:

• MQTT vs OPC UA vs field-bus protocols, and where each fits

• The OT and IT priorities problem, and how to decouple with MQTT

• UNS as an event-driven backbone for orchestration, not a silver bullet

• Edge-first thinking: push rules to the edge, send only what matters

• Governance that scales: RBAC, validation, and killing the “wild west” broker

• Standardizing KPIs like OEE across plants without slowing teams downMake sure to subscribe for more real-world OT, data, and AI conversations.

⏱ Chapters:00:00 Intro

01:00 MQTT’s lane vs OPC UA and field buses

06:45 OT-IT culture and security priorities

12:40 MQTT in the DMZ as a data diode

17:10 Governance, RBAC, and broker hygiene

20:40 Edge intelligence and pushing rules down

26:30 Standardizing OEE and data models across sites

33:10 UNS today and where it’s going next

39:20 Wrap up

🎧 Brought to you by Thing-Zero: Secure. Predict. Augment. Automate.

📌 Follow Kudzai Manditereza on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kudzaimanditereza/

📌 Follow Olivier Bloch on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivierbloch/

📌 Follow Ryan Kershaw on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryankershaw/

Follow Thing-Zero on:

- YouTube: YouTube.com/@thing-zero

- Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/thing-zero

- 𝕏: https://x.com/ThingZ96954

- Web: https://www.Thing-Zero.com

#IndustrialAutomation #SmartFactory #IntelligentManufacturing #AI #OT