Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming cybersecurity and becoming the field’s most important driver of change, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum. The report says 94 percent of cyber leaders now see AI as a defining force in cybersecurity, while 77 percent of organizations are already using it in cyber operations.
The report, AI and Cyber: Empowering Defenders, developed with KPMG, says AI is improving threat detection, speeding up response times and helping organizations reduce the cost and impact of cyberattacks. It also warns that criminals are using the same technology to automate deception, generate malware and scale attacks at unprecedented speed, creating a fast-moving contest between attackers and defenders.
According to the findings, organizations that make extensive use of AI in security can cut average breach costs by up to $1.9 million and shorten breach lifecycles by about 80 days. The report says those gains are making AI not just a technical tool, but a strategic business asset.
“AI has the potential to shift the balance towards defenders,” said Akshay Joshi, Head of the Centre for Cybersecurity at the World Economic Forum. “Organizations that treat it as a strategic capability, rather than a standalone tool, will be better placed to turn growing cyber risk into resilience and competitive advantage.”
The report builds on the Forum’s 2025 work on the risks and rewards of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity, but focuses more closely on how companies are now using AI in practice. It notes that as enterprise attack surfaces expand to include hundreds of thousands of internet-facing assets, the complexity and scale of cyber risk are growing sharply.
Several case studies in the report show how major firms are using AI to improve security operations. KPMG reported a 25 percent increase in operational efficiency in threat intelligence. Accenture said it reduced security analysis time across more than 100,000 internet-facing sites from 15 minutes to under one minute. IBM’s ATOM platform, meanwhile, is said to support round-the-clock threat detection and response, automate more than 850 analyst hours a month and cut end-to-end investigation time by 37 percent.
Laurent Gobbi, Partner and Global Head of Cyber & Tech Risk at KPMG, said attackers are moving faster and operating at greater scale than ever before. He described the report as a call for organizations to match that pace, with AI acting as a force multiplier for cyber defence.
The report argues that AI’s value lies not in automation alone, but in how it enhances human expertise, accelerates decision-making and strengthens resilience. It says successful deployment depends on clear strategy, tested use cases, strong governance and human oversight from the outset.
Drawing on 20 case studies, interviews and workshops under the Forum’s Cyber Frontiers: AI & Cyber initiative, the report reflects input from 105 representatives across 84 organizations in 15 industries.
