ZOHAR Illinetsky is a seasoned entrepreneur and business operator with a notable track record in venture investing, real estate and high-growth companies. He is known for helping founders and leadership teams scale operations, drive revenue and execute strategic growth in competitive markets.
In conversation with The Manila Times, Zohar shares how business growth, sales and startup scaling intersect with cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. His insights offer lessons on how organizations and users can adopt AI responsibly, manage attendant risks and address governance gaps that often leave them vulnerable.
THE MANILA TIMES (TMT): To get started, what is AI in general, and what are its advantages for businesses and consumers?
ZOHAR ILLINETSKY (Zohar): AI was basically created as a tool to improve processes. Originally, artificial intelligence was introduced to the general market as a way to expedite processes, make tasks quicker and more efficient, and make people’s lives easier.
Before Google’s rise in the 1990s, if you wanted information, you had to look in books, go to libraries and conduct research. Google made it possible to access information with the click of a button. AI does something similar. It allows users to summarize information and complete tedious tasks in a much quicker and more efficient way.
TMT: With those advantages in mind, what are the obstacles or problems in the adoption of AI by enterprises?
Zohar: There are many obstacles. Let’s start with the technical aspects. AI is not a bulletproof mechanism. It makes mistakes. If you ask existing AI tools enough questions, you will quickly realize that the answers are not 100-percent accurate. The replies may seem close, but not quite.
Another obstacle is how most of us use AI. When people are given a tool that makes life easier, they tend to assume the tool will completely solve all their problems, so they rely on it 100 percent.
Let me reiterate: AI at its core is a mechanism that brings information faster and in less time. Instead of reading an entire encyclopedia or multiple articles, AI provides a summary much more quickly.
However, AI lacks emotion. Entrepreneurs often say they made a business decision based on gut feel. Gut feel is the compilation of memories, feelings, ideas and lessons learned.
AI does not have that emotional capacity. It cannot make decisions in the same way humans do. I see many businesses go wrong when they allow AI to make certain business or operational decisions that lead them to places they did not intend to go.
TMT: With AI integrated into computers and the internet, cybersecurity is always an essential issue. How does AI enhance or improve enterprises’ ability to address cybersecurity issues?
Zohar: The risks AI introduces in cybersecurity can be divided into two categories.
First, AI lowers the cost of a cyberattack. That reduction poses a major risk. If attacks become cheaper to execute, they may also become more frequent.
The problem businesses face is not necessarily that attacks are smarter. In my opinion, most companies fail to prevent cyberattacks because they assume AI is a solution rather than a tool. They fight cyberattacks with AI tools, but cybersecurity still comes down to human factors — approvals, authority and response time.
Humans need to stay in control, with clear decision ownership and no false confidence in automation. Cybersecurity is not simply an AI problem. It is a management discipline problem. It depends on how you train employees and the gatekeepers of a company, rather than focusing only on the number of attacks.
TMT: Can you explore further your concept of false confidence or false trust?
Zohar: Because AI tools are so impressive, people tend to be captivated by them. They forget that AI is still a developing technology. It is not bulletproof.
If you trust these mechanisms completely without recognizing their limitations, you may end up facing serious problems. By the time you discover the issue, it may already be too late.
Blind trust in AI systems creates risk. If you rely solely on AI, you will likely encounter problems. But if you combine human decision-making — the ability to weigh different situations and scenarios — with AI tools that make work easier, you have a stronger solution.
TMT: In your experience, how do you weigh the advantages versus the disadvantages of AI?
Zohar: It is difficult to frame AI simply as a question of whether the positives outweigh the negatives. For companies that understand what AI is not, it becomes an advantage. It is a powerful tool when used to eliminate inefficient and tedious tasks.
One of the more immediate concerns is communication. In the past, people wrote emails personally, even to colleagues, choosing their words carefully.
Now, many people use AI to draft emails and messages. It becomes two computers communicating with each other. Body language and tone of voice are already absent in written communication, and AI can further reduce the human element.
In sales, for example, AI can diminish the emotional component of the interaction between seller and buyer. It may remove the character and rapport that often tip the balance toward a sale. What remains can be a negotiation focused primarily on price.