There’s a question that many business and IT leaders are asking, typically after reading yet another shocking headline: Are we more at risk because of AI, or more protected?
The honest answer? Both. And that answer should make you uncomfortable.
We’re in an age where artificial intelligence developments and innovations are being announced at a blistering pace. We are looking at the fastest adoption of any technology in human history.
Just when you get a grasp on one new tool or model, another is announced. Stock markets shudder, and workers fret. But beneath the AI hype, there’s a bigger issue: what AI means for cybersecurity.
This moment is important, and it demands something that most cybersecurity conversations skip over. The more important question isn’t about technology at all. Its’ about what this moment demands from you as a leader.
AI Is an Accelerant, Not a Verdict
AI has changed a lot of things, but it hasn’t changed the goals of a cyberattack. Attackers still want access, money, data, and disruption.
What AI has changed is the speed and scale by which attackers can create and deploy cyberattacks. They’re smarter and more sophisticated, and AI is making nefarious activity more accessible to all kinds of actors.
Phishing Attacks are Getting Harder to Spot
Remember the last phishing training you sat through? How to spot odd phrases or strangely generic greetings. That sense that something in the message was just slightly off made it easier to notice these types of attacks.
Generative AI has now erased most of those tells. With AI, an attacker can produce hundreds of personalized messages with data scraped from your company or vendors. They can instruct the AI to create emails that look just like ordinary internal communications.
The risk is real. Phishing attacks linked to generative AI have surged 1,265% since 2023 alone.
Deepfakes are On The Rise
Deepfake technology is now available to anyone with a creative mind. Now it’s a business risk. Deepfake-related fraud losses exceeded $1.56 billion in 2025 — up from $400 million in all of 2024.
For instance, finance teams are at risk of authorizing fraudulent wire transfers after receiving voicemails generated by voice-cloning tools that capture audio from a YouTube video of the CEO.
Automated Reconnaissance Tools are Increasingly Sophisticated
AI scales in ways that people don’t. Using AI, automated reconnaissance tools can quickly map your entire network and inventory systems and identify vulnerabilities in an instant.
Once an attacker is inside, the timeline from initial access to real damage has gone from weeks to hours. Studies find that 50% of ransomware deployments occur within 24 hours of initial access (10% within five hours!) The average lateral movement breakout time is now 62 minutes.
It’s that compression that changes everything about the cybersecurity reality facing companies and organizations. Cybersecurity defenses must become as innovative as AI – if not more.
The Defensive Side of the Same Cybersecurity Coin
It’s easy to look at AI’s capabilities and wonder whether it’s possible to keep up. But it’s those same capabilities that can also help organizations stop cyberattacks.
AI is enhancing monitoring systems that can flag anomalies and deviations in real time, often faster than an analyst reviewing log data. Security platforms can use AI to isolate compromised devices and block suspicious traffic. Response workflows can kick off faster than ever.
If your business relies on an outside IT and security partner rather than a full internal operation, these external teams often have greater visibility and, with the use of advanced AI tools, can add significant value beyond what internal teams may achieve.
The tools are advancing on both sides, and that’s a tension worth sitting with. It also leads directly to the leadership question most executives haven’t confronted yet.
The Governance Gap
Many leaders see cybersecurity as a technology problem. Naturally, investing in better technology should solve that problem, right?
Not quite. Most enterprise-level security platforms already have AI built in. The tools themselves aren’t the primary differentiator. What you need is a leadership shift that focuses on governance, visibility, and decision-making structures around using those tools.
Every AI system your organization runs creates new data flows and new third-party dependencies. That means new risks if your systems are misconfigured or have been adopted without clear policies.
Boards and insurers are asking more pointed questions when it comes to AI risk. Not “What tools do you have?” but “How are you governing AI inside your organization?” It matters who owns the risk and the visibility you have over how AI systems interact with sensitive data.
These are questions that require leadership answers.
What It Means to Lead Differently in the Age of AI
For executives and leadership, you don’t need to become an AI expert or security engineer to keep up. You simply need to operate from a new frame:
Leaders Must Know Where AI Lives In The Business
Do you have visibility into which of your systems are using AI? What data does that AI touch, and what could happen if it fails or is manipulated? If that picture isn’t clear, it’s time to have the conversation with your IT partners and your internal leadership.
Leaders Must Champion a Shift to Move to Continuous Oversight
When the threats evolved more slowly, static policies and assessments were enough to manage the risk.
But the speed of AI capabilities means it’s time to shift from annual analysis to continuous oversight. Security must function as a discipline – monitoring constantly and testing regularly.
Leaders Must Treat AI Governance as a Leverage Point
Organizations must shift how they view governance. This means setting a clear direction and establishing accountability across your organization. Governance-first decisions must become the norm before a security incident forces your hand.
This is a type of leadership that most weren’t trained for. But you don’t need to have every answer. You simply need to start asking the right questions – and create a culture and system that keeps everyone informed and accountable.
The Standard Has Shifted – Are You Ready to Keep Up?
We’re now in the AI age of cybersecurity. You can no longer hand off data protection to your IT team and expect them to handle it. It’s now an organizational challenge that requires leadership clarity and honest risk assessment.
It also requires a partner capable of monitoring how changes may impact your organization – and acts accordingly. That’s the work dotnet is built for.
Our security-first approach means we work alongside leadership to identify real exposure and translate complex risk into clear business terms. We work with leaders and their organizations to build security postures that keep pace with AI.
Want to learn more about how AI is changing the security reality for organizations like yours? Let’s start with the clearest possible picture of where you stand.
