Guest: Randy Bias (LinkedIn)
Company: Mirantis
Show Name: An Eye on AI
Topic: AI Infrastructure

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) ecosystem is still taking shape. Standards are shifting, use cases are emerging, and enterprises are trying to figure out how to operationalize AI safely. For Randy Bias, VP of Strategy & Technology at Mirantis, this uncertainty is familiar territory.

“We’re probably further ahead of the curve than most,” he says. “But we were with OpenStack and Kubernetes too, so this is where we’re used to being.”

Learning Before Leading

Bias describes Mirantis’ strategy as deliberately measured. In a landscape where vendors are racing to stake claims, Mirantis is focused on understanding the unique challenges enterprises face—technical, cultural, and regulatory. “We want to help people get the knowledge we have and learn from them about their particular verticals and geographies,” Bias explains. “Then we can help them actually build solutions that get them across the AI chasm.”

This approach echoes the company’s cloud-native journey. In the early OpenStack days, Mirantis worked hand-in-hand with customers to turn pilot projects into production systems. Those lessons became the foundation for repeatable success as Kubernetes emerged. “Once we’d shown a path to success,” Bias says, “we could replicate it over and over again.”

The Road to AI-Native Operations

Mirantis now sees a similar opportunity with agentic AI. The company’s AdaptiveOps framework is helping enterprises deploy secure, compliant MCP infrastructures. But Bias is quick to note that the real goal isn’t just standing up technology—it’s building sustainable, adaptable systems that can evolve with the ecosystem.

That’s why Mirantis is resisting the temptation to productize too early. “Things are changing so much right now,” Bias says. “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves—and we don’t want our customers to, either.” The focus is on learning fast, delivering value through services, and eventually distilling those insights into enterprise-ready products.

History Repeats—Progressively

Bias draws a straight line from cloud-native to what he calls “AI-native.” Just as enterprises once had to reimagine IT for containers and microservices, now they must rethink governance, compliance, and infrastructure for agentic AI.

Mirantis’ strength lies in guiding organizations through that evolution. “We help customers solve real-world problems, drive them to conclusions, and then leverage those successes into further growth,” says Bias. “That’s how we’ll approach AI, too.”

In other words, Mirantis isn’t betting on hype cycles. It’s betting on execution, learning, and trust—the same formula that helped shape the modern cloud ecosystem.