A new study from Darktrace has surveyed more than 1,500 cybersecurity professionals from around the world to uncover their attitudes, understanding, and priorities when it comes to AI threats, agents, tools, and operations.
It finds that 73 percent say AI-powered threats are already having a significant impact on their organization, while nearly half of security professionals feel unprepared to defend against AI-driven attacks, despite 92 percent saying these threats are driving major upgrades to their defenses.
At the same time 77 percent of security professionals report that generative AI is now embedded in their security stack and 96 percent say AI significantly boosts the speed and efficiency of their work.
Data exposure is identified as the top risk (61 percent), followed by potential violations of data security and privacy regulations (56 percent) and the misuse or abuse of AI tools (51 percent). Despite rising risk awareness regarding AI, just 37 percent of respondent organizations have a formal policy for securely deploying AI, down eight percentage points from last year’s report.
“Enterprises are embracing AI fast, and while AI tools are helping security teams better defend against attacks, agentic AI introduces a new class of insider risk,” says Issy Richards, VP of product at Darktrace. “These systems can act with the reach of an employee — accessing sensitive data and triggering business processes — without human context or accountability. Our research shows security leaders are already worried, and this cannot be treated as an afterthought. If AI agents are operating inside your organization, their governance, access controls, and monitoring are a board-level responsibility, not just a technical one.”
In response to the trends reflected in the survey’s findings, Darktrace today also unveiled its latest offering, Darktrace / SECURE AI. Designed to give security teams visibility and control of how AI tools and agents are being used, what data and systems they can access, and how they behave across the organization.
You can get the full report from the Darktrace site.
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