Jumpmind CISO Eric Zielinski to Introduce New Open-Source AI Interpretability Framework at FIRST Conference 2026

The offering gives security teams a practical path to risk management and accountable AI

COLUMBUS, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jumpmind Chief Information Security Officer Eric Zielinski will speak on AI interpretability risk management at the FIRST Annual Conference 2026 (FIRSTCON26) taking place in Denver this week.

During his talk, he will unveil CIRCUIT, a new open-source framework for AI interpretability risk management built specifically for the security community and reflecting retail technology leader Jumpmind’s commitment to responsible AI use, inviting security professionals to use and contribute to building out the framework.

Running June 14-19, FIRSTCON26 is an event organized by FIRST (Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams), an international not-for-profit association of trusted Computer Security and Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs), Product Security Incident Response Teams (PSIRTs), and independent security researchers from the public, private, and academic sectors.

Since its founding in 1990, FIRST has fostered global cooperation and coordination in incident prevention, rapid response, and information sharing. With over 800 member teams representing more than 100 countries, FIRST plays a vital role in strengthening the global cybersecurity ecosystem. FIRST provides access to best practices, tools, and trusted communication channels that empower the incident response community.

On Tuesday, June 17 at 1:30 p.m. MT, Zielinski will present: AI Interpretability as a Security Control: Introducing the CIRCUIT Framework. Per Zielinski, security leaders face an impossible mandate: deploy AI everywhere while staying accountable when it fails. But today's AI systems triage alerts, block policy violations, and evaluate access requests, without being able to explain how those decisions are made. We're running unauditable security controls. Recent advances in circuit sparsity change that. By reducing a model's active weights to a sparse set, the remaining connections form small, inspectable circuits, or identifiable algorithms we can now test, probe and harden.

Zielinski’s session translates that research into practical security engineering: mapping interpretability to AI threat models, building circuit-informed red team methodologies, and establishing KPIs around circuit stability. He'll also unveil CIRCUIT, a new open-source framework for AI interpretability risk management built specifically for the security community, shifting the standard from "trust the accuracy metrics" to "show me the control logic and prove it's defensible."

As Chief Information Security Officer at Jumpmind, Zielinski navigates the challenge at the heart of this talk – deploying AI to accelerate security while remaining accountable when those systems fail. With over two decades of cybersecurity leadership across Fortune 100 enterprises, financial services, and cloud-native SaaS platforms, he has built programs that treat AI governance as a security engineering problem, not a compliance checkbox.

As Director of AI and Cloud Security at OCC, Zielinski led efforts aligning generative AI governance with regulatory and enterprise risk frameworks, giving him firsthand experience with the "show me how this model makes decisions" questions now coming from regulators and boards. Previously, as CISO at Dizzion, he scaled security programs balancing innovation velocity with resilience.

Zielinski is a frequent speaker at industry conferences including several FIRST events, FS-ISAC, and many others, presenting on topics including securing generative AI and embedding cyber resilience in high-velocity development pipelines. He holds a master's degree from Carnegie Mellon.

About Jumpmind

Jumpmind is a leading provider of innovative retail technology solutions. Our cloud-native, mobile POS platform empowers retailers to streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, and achieve sustainable growth. With a future-proof architecture and a focus on delivering exceptional value to our clients, Jumpmind is committed to shaping the future of retail technology. Jumpmind powers inspired in-store experiences for a growing list of leading retailers, including American Eagle Outfitters, Bath & Body Works, Build-A-Bear Workshop, DTLR, Petco, Reitmans Canada Ltd., Shoe Palace, The Paper Store, Landmark Group, and The Vitamin Shoppe. Learn more about Jumpmind at www.jumpmind.com.