Indeed's CIO On Why Embedding Trust Early Turns Safety Into Source Of AI Velocity

The rush to bring AI into business has many companies caught between two less-than-ideal options: move fast and risk mistakes, or move slow and miss the moment. But what if it's a false choice? The smarter path blends innovation and risk management from the start, built on a simple truth that trust is not a brake but the engine that makes real speed possible.

That's how Anthony Moisant sees it. As CIO and CSO at Indeed, he oversees both innovation and security for one of the world’s largest hiring platforms, serving more than 300 million job seekers each month. A U.S. Navy veteran with leadership experience at Glassdoor and Tribune Media, Moisant brings a rare perspective to the challenge of balancing safety with speed, turning what is often a point of friction into forward motion.

"When you treat trust as a built-in strategic advantage, instead of a defensive function, you move faster, not slower. Embedding security, privacy, and responsible AI from day one removes the bottlenecks later. It means innovation and governance scale together, letting speed come from safety rather than in spite of it," said Moisant.

• Mesh connectivity: To turn this philosophy into practice, thoughtful adoption relies on a governance model that functions as a business enabler. For Moisant, it starts with weaving together IT, security, legal, and business teams in the decision-making process. "This cannot be just an IT or security play; it has to include the rest of the business. When we build governance structures, every function has a voice, creating mesh connectivity across the organization. That balance between governance and operations keeps us fast without adding unnecessary risk," he said.

• Paving the golden path: His framework treats the usual guidelines versus guardrails debate as a sequence rather than a choice. It begins with clear guidelines that translate trust into everyday action, followed by technical guardrails that automate safety and allow the business to move quickly without added risk. "Guidelines are often faster than guardrails, so we start by defining the philosophies of trust and translating them into practice," Moisant explained. "In some cases, like PII redaction through our LLM proxy, we built guardrails quickly to keep pace with the business. Those guardrails then became the blueprint for what we call 'golden pathways,' which simplify how teams use AI while keeping it as safe as possible."