Suzanne Button of Elastic: AI-Driven Security Solutions for Enterprise Defense
Today we're meeting Suzanne Button, Field CTO EMEA at Elastic. They specialise in AI-driven security solutions that bridge customer needs with engineering innovation.
Over to you Suzanne - my questions are in bold:
Who are you, and what's your background?
I'm Suzanne Button, currently serving as Field CTO for EMEA at Elastic, with a career that spans more than three decades in technology and security leadership across both public and private sectors.
My roots are in engineering: I studied at GLOSCAT and earned an HNC in Engineering, before going on to complete professional qualifications with ISACA, ISO, PCI and ISC2. Those early experiences gave me an early grounding in structured problem-solving and resilience; traits that have proved invaluable as my career evolved.
I began in technical roles with the UK Ministry of Defence, which provided a foundation in disciplined, high stakes environments, and later moved to leadership positions in enterprise cybersecurity at global software firms such as Atos and Sitecore. Over the years, I've built experience across hands-on operational management, risk assessment, and strategic consulting with CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs, always aiming to combine deep technical expertise with business acumen. That balance has been central to my approach: ensuring that security decisions are not only technically sound but also aligned with broader organisational and strategic objectives.
What is your job title, and what are your general responsibilities?
As Field CTO EMEA at Elastic, I serve as a bridge between our customers and our engineering and product teams, ensuring solutions meet real-world business needs while reflecting local market demands.
My role combines thought leadership, customer advisory work, steering innovation in our security portfolio, and mentoring teams to stay ahead of the threat landscape. Day to day, I lead technical deep dives, shape product roadmaps based on customer feedback and represent Elastic at industry forums to promote AI-driven security advancements.
My journey from security specialist to Field CTO was driven by continuously expanding my technical expertise - particularly in cybersecurity and cloud - and developing the ability to translate complex ideas into business terms that resonate with executives and boards.
Joining Elastic was a strategic choice. I was drawn by its reputation for transparency, innovation, and impact, where I could combine technical depth with business-minded leadership to influence both transformation and industry best practices. Along the way, mentors played a pivotal role, encouraging me to take risks, refining my decision-making, and modelling the communication skills essential for executive leadership.
Can you give us an overview of how you're using AI today?
AI is central to our security strategy at Elastic, powering everything from generative threat detection and attack discovery to user support via AI-powered assistants. Our Security AI Assistant enables analysts to accelerate investigations by turning natural language queries into structured security search, while our Attack Discovery feature triages alerts to highlight active threats for faster response.
Customers are seeing significant efficiency gains and strong value, particularly as our AI tools reduce repetitive security tasks and free teams to focus on higher value, creative threat hunting.
Tell us about your investment in AI? What's your approach?
Our approach strikes a balance between internal product innovation and strategic partnerships. While we have a dedicated AI team driving development, we also collaborate closely with leading AI infrastructure providers like Atos, Google, AWS, Microsoft and NVIDIA.
Elastic's investment spans key industries including defence, healthcare and finance, with dedicated budgets to expand our AI-native capabilities and stay ahead of new LLM developments. We take a pragmatic build-versus-buy approach, evaluating each case based on market fit and long-term sustainability.
What prompted you to explore AI solutions? What specific problems were you trying to solve?
We turned to AI to address some of the industry's biggest pain points: analyst burnout from alert overload, lengthy investigation cycles and the growing complexity of hybrid threats. By scaling analyst expertise and automating time consuming detection tasks, AI surfaces subtle patterns humans might miss and frees teams to focus on higher value, strategic decisions instead of manual triage.
Who are the primary users of your AI systems, and what's your measurement of success? Have you encountered any unexpected use cases or benefits?
Our core users include security analysts, engineers and SOC leaders who depend on Elastic for threat detection and response. Beyond security, observability and site reliability engineers use our platform to keep systems running smoothly with real-time metrics and performance insights. Increasingly, businesses are also adopting Elastic as a Data Mesh to unify access to data across the organisation, from legacy systems to cloud environments. We measure success through outcomes such as reduced investigation times, higher detection rates of targeted attacks, and stronger analyst satisfaction.
At the same time, customers are uncovering new and unexpected applications for our AI features - from regulatory reporting and forensic evidence gathering to incident simulation. We've even seen more niche use cases emerge, such as monitoring insider trading at stock exchanges or powering Agentic AI in customer service, which demonstrates the versatility of the platform.
What has been your biggest learning or pivot moment in your AI journey?
One of our biggest learnings has been the importance of robust prompt evaluation in LLM-powered features. By moving from manual reviews to automated benchmarking, we've been able to deliver more accurate, reliable AI outputs at scale. Another pivotal moment came from real-world customer feedback which revealed unexpected use cases and guided us to prioritise,more flexible integrations and domain-specific features in our roadmap.
How do you address ethical considerations and responsible AI use in your organisation?
Ethical AI is a cornerstone of our approach at Elastic. Every deployment follows standardised evaluation, transparency and strict privacy best practices. We champion responsible AI through internal and industry-wide policies, ensuring our systems remain auditable, secure and free from unintended bias. By collaborating with partners and customers, we foster a culture where responsible AI is a shared commitment, not just a compliance checkbox.
Personally, I also serve on several boards that advise governments on policy and standards, advocating for security-first AI development.
Thank you very much, Suzanne!
Read more about Suzanne Button on LinkedIn and find out more about Elastic at elastic.co.