At Globes’ TECH IL conference, tech reporter Meital Weizenberg moderated a discussion between two executives from different generations, Michal Braverman-Blumenthal, CEO of Microsoft Israel Research and Development, and Zohar Eini, founder of Port, one of Globes’ most promising companies. They discussed Israel’s cyber strengths, the country’s AI ambitions, and how development teams are changing as AI agents take on more work.
Braverman-Blumenthal said Israel already has the ingredients to become an AI power, just as it became a cyber power. She cited figures showing that 37 cents of every global dollar invested in cyber went to Israel, and that 69% of cyber mergers and acquisitions in the past year took place in Israel. In AI, she said Israel ranks third globally in private-sector investment and first in per-capita use, with about 2,000 AI startups, but lacks a national strategic plan. She argued that only coordinated action among academia, industry and government can turn those advantages into leadership.
Eini described Port, founded four years ago and now employing about 200 people, as a company that provides infrastructure for development teams to build software processes autonomously. He said an early and crucial product decision was to work at the infrastructure layer, close to the core systems, because that positions a company strongly and lets it adapt to each organization’s DNA. He also said Port learns from customers such as GitHub and from Microsoft about where AI is heading.
The two said software development is moving from manual coding to autocomplete, and now to AI-led development, where engineers plan, set goals and manage agents in dialogue with them. Braverman-Blumenthal warned that AI also creates new security risks because autonomous agents may get access to systems and data, so organizations must know where every agent is, assign identities and limit access. She said Microsoft has such systems already, and that companies adopting AI with a “security first” approach will succeed. Looking ahead, she said the key opportunities for Israeli startups are AI chips, infrastructure and vertical solutions, while long-term winners will combine technology with human creativity and organizational culture. Eini added that companies should calculate ROI and adopt AI deliberately, rather than rushing in from fear.
