AI in Cybersecurity: CEOs & CISOs Disagree on Value and Risks

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief: CISOs are slightly less confident than CEOs that AI will improve their company’s cyber defenses, according to a new report. Roughly 30% of CEOs think AI will help them with cybersecurity, while only 20% of CISOs said the same, Axis Capital said in its report. The survey also revealed transatlantic disagreement about the value of AI and the dangers of AI-fueled cyberattacks. Dive Insight: Axis Capital’s report paints a picture of boardroom friction, as CISOs and CEOs express different views about the role of AI in their organizations. Roughly two-thirds of CEOs trust AI tools to help them make cybersecurity decisions, according to the report, compared with 59% of CISOs. And while CEOs are more worried than CISOs about the potential for data leakage associated with AI (29% versus 17%), CISOs are more concerned than CEOs about the more complicated problem of shadow AI (27% versus 17%). U.S. CEOs were also more likely than their CISO counterparts to believe that their organization could respond to an AI-powered cyberattack faster than their peers. At the same time, American CEOs were more concerned than their CISO counterparts about AI-powered cyberattacks. Axis Capital’s report is based on surveys of 138 U.S. CEOs, 112 U.S. CISOs, 123 U.K. CEOs and 127 U.K. CISOs, all at companies with at least 250 employees. The report found that American and British executives see AI very differently. In the U.S., 88% of CEOs believe AI will make their companies more secure, while only 55% of U.K. CEOs agree. British CEOs were four times as likely as American CEOs to express a lack of confidence in AI’s defensive benefits (33% versus 8%). There are several transatlantic divides over AI and cybersecurity, according to the report. One difference concerns the level of agreement between CEOs and CISOs about AI’s value. In the U.S., CEOs and CISOs expressed roughly equal levels of confidence in AI’s ability to help them make cybersecurity decisions, with 83% of executives in both categories saying they trusted AI. In the U.K., while roughly half of CEOs said they trusted AI, only 37% of CISOs said the same.