- A recent study by cybersecurity leader Splunk Inc. indicates increased adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), with every respondent confirming either utilization or plans to implement AI technologies.
- Despite the growing acceptance, trust remains a significant issue with concerns surrounding AI-enabled systems and processes, data privacy and security, system reliability, and data quality.
- Early decisions regarding AI policies can influence organizations’ long-term AI strategy, with trust and reliability in AI-enabled systems contributing to the primary concerns, particularly in cybersecurity tools that leverage AI.
- AI adoption rates among federal agencies were found to be similar to the public sector, leading to homogeneous AI goals and challenges across the two sectors.
- Continuous monitoring, threat intelligence solutions and the development of an incident response plan were cited as top tactics by half of the public sector respondents to defend against cybersecurity attacks on AI systems.
- Public and private sector respondents agreed that innovation, the use of AI technology to enhance goods or services, and its role in improving citizen and customer experiences were the main AI strategy drivers.
- Cybersecurity was identified as a top AI use case by 80% of respondents already addressing cybersecurity priorities with AI, using AI-enabled monitoring, risk assessment and analysis of threat data.
- Regulations continue to be a hindrance, with 78% of survey respondents stating that global ethical principles should guide AI regulation, rather than it being the province of nation-states.
- Approximately fifty percent of respondents are eager to use AI for automation to help increase productivity across their organizations.
In conclusion, despite AI adoption increasing across the board, trust remains a significant obstacle. There is a clear need for a systematic planning framework to ensure positive business outcomes from AI. Furthermore, in order to overcome this issue of trust, the framework for AI use and adoption has to be guided by global ethical principles. Undoubtedly, the benefits of AI, such as improving citizen and customer experiences and increasing productivity, cannot be overlooked, especially in the cybersecurity sector. As such, the continued attention and efforts to harness the full potential of AI while establishing optimal trust level are of paramount importance.
