From API Security to AI Security: Inside the OWASP Exchange with Escape’s Yacine Souam

What happens when AI agents start behaving like autonomous users inside your infrastructure? In this episode, we sit down with Yacine Souam, an R&D engineer at Escape — the Y Combinator-funded, Forbes 30 Under 30-recognized cybersecurity startup — to explore one of the fastest-growing frontiers in tech: the intersection of AI security and API security.Yacine shares his journey through cybersecurity and AI research, along with his work on the OWASP Exchange, an initiative helping bridge the gap between security professionals, developers, and AI practitioners. The conversation dives into why AI security is becoming inseparable from API security, especially as AI agents increasingly interact with internal systems, APIs, and sensitive data.We explore the emerging challenges companies face in securing AI models and autonomous agents, from observability gaps and permission scoping to adversarial machine learning and prompt injection attacks. Yacine explains why AI agents should be treated as non-human identities and how principles like least privilege and security-by-design are becoming essential for modern AI deployments.The episode also covers real-world security concerns, including supply chain risks in the AI ecosystem and lessons from the recent LiteLLM incident. Along the way, Yacine shares practical advice for engineers, founders, and security teams looking to safely adopt AI while maintaining innovation speed.Whether you’re building AI products, securing APIs, or simply trying to understand where the future of cybersecurity is headed, this episode offers a grounded and highly practical look into the rapidly evolving world of AI security.Stay curious, keep experimenting, and learn how security is evolving alongside AI.