AI Will Elevate Near-Term Cybersecurity Risks but — with Investment and Coordination — Can Strengthen Cybersecurity in the Long Run News Release By Molly Galvin Last update June 24, 2026 WASHINGTON — To counteract emerging cyberthreats posed by artificial intelligence, the baseline level of cybersecurity across society must rise — including stronger security practices, improved software quality, faster response to threats, and more effective sharing of cyberthreat intelligence, says a new rapid expert consultation from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Frontier AI systems are rapidly expanding what is possible for both attackers and defenders, the publication says. In the near term, these advances are likely to favor attackers by reducing the time, expertise, and operational effort required for cyberattacks. “With investment and collaboration, AI could facilitate a stronger approach to cybersecurity that may shift the advantage to the defenders,” said Giovanni Vigna, director of the AI Institute for Agent-based Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operation (ACTION) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and co-author of the publication. “Cybersecurity will need to improve rapidly to meet this challenge.” Because AI-enabled cyber capabilities are evolving faster than the ability to evaluate and measure them, risk assessment is further complicated for policymakers and practitioners, the publication says. It provides an overview of how advances in AI are reshaping cybersecurity risks and defenses, including examples and policy considerations for decision-makers in the public and private sectors. Long-term advantage could shift to defenders Over longer time horizons, AI may enable fundamentally different and more favorable defensive approaches, allowing for a transition from static, episodic defense to continuous ‘defense-in-depth’ — in which vulnerability discovery and patching, threat detection, intelligence generation, incident response, and other functions operate as ongoing, interconnected processes. “The short-term outlook is concerning, but the longer-term outlook is cautiously optimistic,” said