Is the rapid growth of the AI market a sign of a bubble about to burst? The lightning-fast pace of investment in AI has some fearing a repeat of the dot-com bust and questioning whether new AI-driven technologies will ever live up to their promise.
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“Given the significant costs of operating a generative AI startup, questions are already beginning to arise about whether valuations are justified,” Seth Spergel, managing partner at Marlin Ventures, an SC Awards finalist, told SC Media.
However, when it comes to the use of AI in cybersecurity, experts who spoke to SC Media expressed confidence that AI isn’t going away and there is only room for further growth in applying the technology to the needs of the security industry.
“I’m much more comfortable investing in areas that leverage AI to support other use cases, like cyber, than I am investing purely in AI,” Spergel said.
Rather than slowing down, AI’s rapid growth will likely redirect to further benefit cybersecurity, predicts Sivan Tehila, CEO and founder of Onyxia Cyber, an SC Award winner for Best AI/ML Data Analytics Security Solution and Best Emerging Technology.
“AI is here to stay and advancements in AI technology will continue to grow. We don’t expect interest demand to decline, but it will grow in certain areas,” Sehira said. “For example, the initial focus of the AI boom was on chatbots powered by LLMs and generative AI. This focus is likely to evolve into other areas where AI can be useful, such as predictive models powered by data analytics.”
How AI will fundamentally change cybersecurity
It’s clear that security and cyber market experts see AI not just as a trend or fad, but as a tipping point that will enable cyber defenders to reach their full potential.
“AI goes hand in hand with automation, and AI automation is transforming many workflows in security operations. From detecting previously unseen threats to automating triage, remediation and response, AI frees up human analysts to focus on the more complex and strategic aspects of their role where they can truly make an impact,” said Mike Britton, CISO at Abnormal Security, winner of the SC Award for Best Security Company.
In a time of cyber talent shortage, AI’s ability to free up cybersecurity personnel’s time and improve cyber defense coverage was a consistent theme in conversations with experts in the field, who highlighted capabilities such as phishing and endpoint threat detection, vulnerability and configuration management, automated and improved incident response, and more efficient deployment of cybersecurity software.
Tehilla noted that an Onyxia Cyber survey of 200 CISOs found that 97% believe AI can improve their organization’s risk management.
“These statistics are encouraging because I believe that by adopting AI technologies, security leaders can move away from time-consuming, manual methods (e.g., spreadsheets) and fully leverage the power of all the data in their ecosystem in real time to get the most out of their existing security tools, improve preparedness, and better protect their organizations,” Tehilla said.
Morgan Kauck, managing director at Night Dragon and winner of the SC Awards Investor of the Year award, said AI has “fundamentally changed the way we work, communicate and use technology,” and believes its impact on the cyber market will grow as public attention shifts to more specific enterprise applications.
“Currently, budgets are primarily going to areas like chips and infrastructure, but over time we expect budgets to shift to be spent higher up the stack. We believe the cyber market will continue to thrive as AI becomes more prevalent as part of business workflows,” Kyauk said.
Implementing AI strategically and responsibly
The benefits that organizations can reap from AI depend on their ability to implement it strategically, without sacrificing data security or jumping on the hype without a plan.
“One of the consequences of rapid adoption is ‘AI washing,’ a marketing tactic where companies exaggerate the amount of AI in their products in an attempt to cash in on the trend,” Britton says. “As IT and security leaders grow into AI leaders within their organizations, they will become more AI-savvy and be able to distinguish between true AI and AI marketing hype.”
When implementing AI in the workplace, companies need to understand all of the data being fed into AI applications like ChatGPT, as well as any new AI-related government regulations that companies using or developing AI must comply with, Tehila noted.
“To mitigate further risks, it is up to startups and vendors to develop AI responsibly – that means building in security protections from the start, ensuring ethical use of the technology, and eliminating bias from algorithms,” Kyauk added. “Mitigating these risks is critical as we move forward in this field – otherwise future innovation and our very security will be put at risk.”
Overall, Spargel argued that organizations should think of AI like an Iron Man suit: It can do amazing things, but only when Tony Stark is inside the suit and piloting it.
“AI will augment humans rather than replace them in most job roles, and we will continue to see new products emerge that are much more effective than previous generations in the types of applications that allow us to scale up humans more than ever before,” Spergel concluded.
