In this episode of The Quantum Space: Innovating Trust, Steve speaks with Todd Persen, CTO of Hydrolix, about what happens when digital systems no longer report to humans first, but to each other.

As machine-to-machine interactions scale, a more specific shift is underway: agentic traffic (automated systems acting with increasing autonomy)is beginning to surpass traditional human-driven activity online. Industry data, including the Imperva 2025 Bad Bot Report, points to a tipping point where automated activity now exceeds human traffic. This is not just a change in volume, but in behaviour, intent, and consequence.

Observability data is moving with it. What was once operational insight is becoming something more structural: a system of record. Telemetry is no longer just describing what happened. It is becoming part of how systems verify, respond, and enforce outcomes in real time.

The discussion explores how high-volume data pipelines operate under pressure, how data is retained and interrogated at scale, and why this layer is moving closer to the core of digital trust.

Set against rising regulatory and legal scrutiny, the episode examines a harder question: when machines talk to machines, who—or what—proves what actually happened?

You can also subscribe to our podcast on the platforms below;