This chapter looks ahead at the loop, with the series' discipline, and asks the question that the book has so far kept at arm's length: will the red team and the blue team still be separate in 2036, or will emulation, detection engineering and the rest of the loop become one engineering practice? It concerns all five stages of the purple loop, P1 Target, P2 Emulate, P3 Observe, P4 Improve and P5 Verify, because each is a candidate for automation, for merger with a neighbouring stage or for a new kind of separation, and because the answer decides who holds the check at P5 Verify. The chapter treats the outlook as a horizon register, stages the debate between concern and calm, and then states the author's own projection, labelled as such, with the evidence that would change it.
Two earlier volumes asked the same kind of question about one side of the table. AI Blue, Chapter 24, asked whether there will be a security operations centre in 2036 and answered that an accountable function able to verify and stop its AI is expected, while its name and shape are speculation (94, Nordqvist, 2026). The Transformed Security Architect, Chapter 23, asked whether there will be a security architect and kept the role wherever accountability for a boundary must be human (92, Nordqvist, 2026). This chapter does not repeat either answer. It asks about the junction between the sides: what happens to the loop when the team that tests and the team that is tested are filled, in part, by systems that resemble one another. It builds on an outlook governed as a horizon register, in which observable trends justify commitment, expected ones preparation and speculative ones reversibility, with the author's judgement kept apart from the findings (AI Governance, Chapters 22 and 24) (88, Nordqvist, 2026), on the finding that small delegations erode skill and memory until the fallback no longer exists (AI Threat, Chapter 26) (91, Nordqvist, 2026), and on the independence principle of Chapters 4 and 15.
Ten years is a long horizon, and those best placed to speak about the loop have a stake in the answer. Tetlock's long study of expert forecasts found that experts predicting political and economic outcomes did little better than chance, and that those who combined many small ideas and revised often did better than those who held one big idea (86, Tetlock, 2005). A red-team lead has a reason to believe that human emulation is irreplaceable, a vendor that the pipeline replaces the session, and a chief executive that two teams are one too many. The register makes such interests reviewable. Each trend carries one label, names its stage, points to evidence, states the trigger that would change the posture, and names an owner and a review date. A trend is observable if it is happening now and documented, expected if it is supported by a stated trend or a decided instrument, and speculation if it is plausible but unsupported by present evidence. The posture follows the label: commit to what is observable, prepare for what is expected, and keep reversible what is speculation.
Primary topics explored
- A horizon register for the loop
- What is observable
- What is expected
- What is speculation
- Three futures for 2036
- The debate
About AI Purple
AI Purple is Book 9 of The Transformed Architecture. It takes the loop between the red team and the blue team as its subject and asks what happens when AI sits on both sides of the table: the five stages of the loop (target, emulate, observe, improve, verify), rules of engagement and safe emulation, continuous emulation, the independence principle, coverage as a claim that needs evidence, the loop's own AI and how to defend it, operating models, decision rights, regulation, and the people involved, for European enterprises and public authorities.
It builds on the conclusions of Architecture as Code, AI Governance, AI Platform and Security, AI Red Team, AI Threat, The Transformed Security Architect, AI Boss and AI Blue.
Chief information security officers, heads of security operations, red-team leads, penetration testers, SOC managers, detection engineers, purple-team coordinators and incident commanders, security and AI architects, boards and management bodies, procurement leads, works councils and unions, data protection and audit functions, and public-sector leaders.
Gunnar Nordqvist
Conceived, directed and published the books of The Transformed Architecture.
Continue with the full chapter
Chapter 25: The Future of the Loop: Will Red and Blue Be Separate Teams in 2036? in AI Purple gives the detailed explanations, practical examples and implementation patterns behind this summary.
This whitepaper belongs to “People and Career” and is one of 33 drawn from the manuscript.