Diving overview:
- As the growth of AI puts increased pressure on corporate network infrastructure, IT executives are deeply concerned about the cybersecurity implications of rapid network change and expansion.
- “Respondents cited security complexity as the most important challenge related to AI-driven network demands.” In a recent report, Cisco said: Regarding the network demand.
- Security concerns are a “direct barrier to AI scale” as organizations are reluctant to expand their use of AI if they believe it poses a risk of hacking, the report said.
Dive Insight:
Cisco report: AI security concerns In addition to shaping enterprise adoption, it also highlights organizations’ expectations for the future of AI-powered cyberattacks.
Concerns about cybersecurity were one of the top reasons why organizations felt the need for security. Modernize your network to support AI tools72% of IT leaders cited “increased security risk or expanded attack surface” as a motivating factor.
At the same time, more than three-quarters of Cisco survey respondents said they expected to: AI security risks It is expected to increase as companies expand their use of technology beyond production activities. A similar proportion of respondents said AI has “already expanded the attack surface in the past 12 months.”
Another worrying finding: 71% of IT leaders expect AI threats to evolve. Exceed existing security controls.
“We’re just playing catch-up at the moment,” a senior IT executive in Britain’s education industry told reporters.
Nearly 70% of respondents told Cisco that they have increased blind spots on their networks, limiting their ability to monitor and block suspicious activity.
The Cisco report is based on a survey of 3,472 CIOs and other technology leaders around the world from March to April 2026.
“Respondents cited an expanded attack surface, shadow AI activity, inconsistent policy enforcement, and limited visibility into how AI-driven traffic moves within the enterprise environment as key factors driving this. [AI] “We are hesitant,” Cisco analysts wrote.
In some organizations, the unchecked proliferation of AI tools is stressing security teams to the limit. “The problem from a security perspective is that it’s hard to create guardrails for all the AI tools that organizations have to use,” one retail industry executive told reporters.
Nearly 90% of IT leaders report adding security controls to their AI tools, but many are unsure whether those controls are sufficient. 61% said they are waiting for “more confidence in their security posture” before expanding the use of AI in their organizations.
Because AI tools operate at machine speed, organizations using AI face a myriad of balancing acts, including security, speed, efficiency, and control. Agent accesses sensitive data and Shadow AI It lurks beyond the reach of security teams.
“Gaps that once caused minor operational issues can now expose significant governance and security risks within environments where AI systems continuously generate activity across distributed networks,” Cisco said.
