How AI is changing the cybersecurity landscape: What are the threats and opportunities?

It’s no secret that artificial intelligence is changing the world, and cybersecurity is no different. Generative AI, in particular, has created new opportunities, as well as some challenges, for organizations and data professionals.

This was the topic of the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo presentation, “Gartner’s Cybersecurity Radar for CIOs, 2025 – 2026,” which provided an analysis of emerging trends in cybersecurity, with a focus on the opportunities and threats posed by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). Our VP of Strategy and Innovation, Caroline Capitani, was in attendance and shared some of the highlights from the event.

How AI can improve cyber defenses

The talk explored some emerging opportunities for how AI can be used to improve cyber defenses:

• Automating incident triage, allowing security teams to identify and prioritize attacks more quickly.
• Provide self-healing architectures that can automatically detect and respond to anomalies and attacks.
• Helping teams respond to threats more efficiently by providing deeper and more accurate insight into security incidents.
• Streamline threat intelligence, creating more adaptive systems that respond quickly to changes in the security environment.
• Enabling more agile risk assessments that help organizations quickly identify and proactively respond to emerging threats.

In addition to these advances, AI can also

• Help manage security policies, such as vulnerability patching.
• Improve security analyst training by providing real-time insights and analysis.
• Automate repetitive tasks, such as log analysis and vulnerability identification.

Threats driven by Generative AI

However, GenAI also presents new challenges for cybersecurity. The same technology that can be used to protect systems can also be used by malicious actors to create more sophisticated and effective attacks.

• Sophisticated phishing attacks: GenAI makes it easier to create highly convincing emails and messages, making phishing campaigns harder to detect.
• Deepfakes: The manipulation of video and audio with deepfakes is a growing threat for financial fraud and spear-phishing campaigns.
• Autonomous malware: GenAI can be used to create malware that can evolve and adapt without human intervention.
• Attack chain automation: GenAI can be used to automate attack tools, making it easier for cybercriminals to launch large-scale attacks.
• AI supply chain attacks: These attacks can compromise the integrity of AI models and produce biased or harmful results.

With this ever-evolving scenario, organizations need to take a proactive stance on cybersecurity. It is critical to invest in AI solutions that can strengthen defenses and help mitigate growing risks.

Ongoing collaboration, research, and innovation are also essential to combat emerging threats and make the most of the new tools that AI offers. Adapting to this new landscape is critical. Organizations that anticipate the changes and adopt solutions to improve their security will be better positioned to meet the cybersecurity challenges of the coming years.

The message from Gartner’s presentation was very clear: we need to be proactive and use AI to improve security strategies while preparing for the challenges ahead. The pace of GenAI evolution is rapid, and those who can keep up with these changes will be ahead of the curve.