Corporate Cyber Budgets Surge Amid AI Security Fears

The survey, which polled 3,934 executives across 71 countries, reveals a growing disconnect between investment and resilience. While 58 per cent of leaders prioritize AI in their spending plans, they rank threats like autonomous botnets, adversarial attacks, and data poisoning as the areas where they are least equipped to respond. Only 22 per cent of participants are currently willing to trust fully autonomous AI agents with cyber defense, citing deep concerns over technical maturity, accountability, and a persistent shortage of governance skills.

Basic organizational hygiene remains a weak point. Only 5 per cent of surveyed firms have implemented all seven key data-risk measures, a decline from 7 per cent in previous cycles. Furthermore, governance structures are struggling to keep pace, with less than half of firms formally including cyber risk on their board-level agendas. To mitigate these vulnerabilities, companies are shifting toward multi-cloud strategies and regional infrastructure localization. This pivot is increasingly driven by both defensive necessity and regulatory pressure, such as the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act, which mandates stringent oversight of third-party technological risks.