Student Profile

Sangeetha Natarajan

Global VP, Sales Engineering , UiPath

Class of 2024

The emergence and active development of Generative AI is set to turbocharge the field of business automation and consequently the field of cybersecurity for businesses. Aware of the technology’s significance, Sangeetha “Uma” Natarajan (MSCRS ’24), the global vice president for sales engineering at business automation firm UiPath, specifically sought out the NYU MSCRS program to understand it and how society and government are reacting. Her reasons? “The MSCRS is a perfect amalgamation of the evolving technology, policy, and laws around this increasingly complex issue—with world-class faculty and great networking opportunities across various fields from lawyers, policy makers, and board members to technology geniuses, which wouldn’t have been the case in any other program.”

Over the past 20 years, Natarajan has served in senior leadership positions in the technology space, as well as having co-founded two startups. With the benefit of that experience, she understands that customers, along with multiple businesses and industries, are aware that AI is altering the cybersecurity landscape as well as business processes. “Although GenAI allows cyber threats to be more sophisticated,” she acknowledged, “it also has the potential to improve cyber defenses, where machine learning models can detect and hunt for new threats, enabling business to promptly stop anomalies.”

“Corporations and government deal with thousands of attacks each year, and with hours of log files daily, it is impossible to detect all threats. AI has the capability to not only handle large volumes of data but also predict patterns and behaviors in a network. It is making cybersecurity more proactive—AI-powered cybersecurity solutions can predict and prevent cyberattacks before they occur.”

Helping businesses automate requires a mix of technical and human-centric skills, Natarajan observed. “On the technical side, having a deep understanding of multiple technologies, an ability to communicate complex concepts in clear simple terms, and the ability to solve a customer’s needs are critical. The human-centric side requires the ability to build relationships with customers, understand their pain points, and develop solutions. The qualities of being able to motivate, have difficult conversations, and lead a team are all relevant skills.”

As AI and GenAI become more capable at accomplishing the low-level administrative tasks that formerly required time-consuming attention by employees, fear of job loss looms as a challenge for employers and the business automation professionals hired to implement the technology. “Empathy plays a huge role when handling a difficult conversation around job loss,” Natarajan pointed out. “Listening to concerns and offering help goes a long way. Transparency is another aspect that often gets overlooked. It is better to be clear than to muddy the conversations without being direct. Providing support and offering options are a few ways to handle this conversation.”

The policy and legal issues surrounding AI-enabled automation present another challenge for the industry. “What regulation provides is a bare minimum baseline to improve the overall security and reliability of cybersecurity and AI. Regulations often on the surface try to protect consumers and businesses from data fraud, privacy concerns, and malicious actors—GDPR, for example, has helped to raise awareness of data privacy issues. It has also forced businesses to implement more privacy and consent requirements for data gathering by corporations.

“However, regulation can also stifle innovation and competition. It is important to ensure that regulations are carefully designed and implemented in a way that promotes innovation and protects consumers and businesses. Regulations are going to constantly evolve along with how they are implemented and enforced.”