Recognising the Strengths and Threats Posed by AI Adoption

In accordance with the Gartner Hype Cycle trajectory, AI technology appears to be approaching the ‘Slope of Enlightenment’. With businesses rapidly adopting it as they recognise its potential. An Ernst & Young study found that 95% of senior executives are already investing in AI.

AI represents both an opportunity for efficiency and a growing internal security challenge, with organisations balancing access to new technology with robust protections.

The malicious use of AI, however, is evolving rapidly. Hackers are leveraging AI for automated, more sophisticated phishing schemes, social engineering, deepfakes, and even malware generation. Throughout 2025, the volume, complexity, and effectiveness of attacks will intensify, demanding agile countermeasures.

Deepfakes are a prime example of AI exploitation. One recent case involved cyber criminals using deepfake technology to impersonate a CFO on a video call, resulting in a $25 million fraudulent transfer. Gartner predicts that by 2026, nearly one-third of enterprises will view traditional identity verification as unreliable due to AI-generated deepfakes.

Another threat is data poisoning, where attackers manipulate the data used to train AI systems, influencing the AI’s behaviour, or degrading its performance. This subtle manipulation is particularly dangerous as it can corrupt AI-driven insights without being immediately detectable.

In response, security teams are increasingly using AI to detect and mitigate sophisticated threats, automate vulnerability scanning, and to handle vast amounts of security data. This proactive use of AI will allow cyber security teams to focus on higher-value tasks, while the technology detects potential issues early.

The assertion that AI can be a force for good in combating cyber threats is demonstrated by innovations like Telefonica’s AI-powered tool “Daisy,” which targets and entraps scammers. This example highlights the growing potential of artificial intelligence to proactively address challenges in the cyber domain. As cyber threats grow more sophisticated, cyber security experts, AI developers, and policymakers will likely collaborate more frequently to create original solutions that safeguard digital ecosystems while reinforcing the positive narrative of AI as a problem-solving technology.