The annual CISO Empowerment in the Age of AI Risk report, now in its fourth year, draws on responses from more than 1,000 security and IT leaders, including 307 CISOs, across Australia, France, Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Governance concerns are mounting at both technical and board level. Among organisations that suffered a breach in the past year, 83% reported AI-related security incidents, with 30% experiencing internal data leaks into AI systems and a further 30% recording unsanctioned AI use. Seven in ten CISOs say limited board understanding of security best practices risks allowing AI adoption to outpace security readiness, and 41% place improved board-level AI literacy among their top priorities for the next 12 months. More than one in four CISOs say they are concerned about losing their job following a serious cyber incident.
Visibility into AI-driven traffic is a related pressure point. Three quarters of CISOs say limited visibility is a major barrier to securing AI adoption, yet despite 88% having deployed new detection tools, breaches rose 18% year on year. Only 27% of CISOs say their organisation can identify root cause and restore normal operations within 72 hours of an incident, against 48% of other C-suite executives.
Encrypted traffic represents a further gap: 86% of CISOs say visibility into encrypted traffic is critical for post-quantum computing readiness, and 89% believe it could help reduce cyber insurance premiums.
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