Dive Brief:
- Most cyber leaders are bullish on generative AI despite governance concerns, according to a CrowdStrike survey published in December. Nearly two-thirds say their organization would overhaul tooling in order to leverage better generative AI capabilities.
- Leaders expect generative AI adoption to bring ROI through cost optimization, easier tool management, reduced incidents and shorter training cycles, according to the survey of more than 1,000 cybersecurity leaders and practitioners.
- Respondents said the leading concern when weighing a generative AI purchase is how applications or services integrate with current tools. Around 70% intend to purchase access to the technology in the next year.
Dive Insight:
IT leaders have lamented the risks generative AI brings, from expanding the attack surface to introducing new problems. At the same time, many leaders believe generative AI can enhance enterprise security tools and processes.
For most companies, AI-enhanced security monitoring tools are table stakes, CrowdStrike CTO Elia Zaitsev told CIO Dive. Adding generative AI to security can help answer enterprise questions about responding to threats after they’ve been detected or prevented.
“A lot of vendors and companies out there talk about these new generative AI systems as a replacement for human labor,” Zaitsev said. “Philosophically, that is not the approach we take [and] that is not what we believe is happening.”
Cyber and AI dominate upskilling priorities and represent the skill sets businesses are having the greatest difficulty finding, according to a Skillsoft survey published last June. Cybersecurity also continues to command the attention of top executives. Most point to cyber risk as the top concern heading into the new year.
Despite generative AI's potential, only 39% of cyber leaders believe generative AI’s rewards outweigh its risks, the CrowdStrike survey found.
Businesses continue to grapple with cyber basics, overestimating their cyber resilience capabilities, according to a Cohesity survey published in August. Leaders have lofty expectations for how their business should perform, and some see AI-enhanced security capabilities as a bridge for the gap.
“The value of generative AI tools lies in their ability to integrate with the platforms and tools that security teams already use,” CrowdStrike said in the report.
