As technology continues to advance at an unprecedented rate, its impact on various sectors will only deepen, reshaping the way we live, work and interact with the world around us. However, this digitalisation means the attack surface has expanded rapidly, with malicious actors presented with a plethora of opportunities to target organisations.

Against a backdrop of an increasingly complex and sophisticated threat landscape, and business challenges such as a cyberskills shortage and awareness training, Chief Information Security Officers( CISOs) face multiple challenges as they strive to secure their organisations’ digital assets. The emergence of AI is also providing opportunities to attackers and the rising simplicity with which attacks can be executed is a concern among industry professionals.

However, AI also holds immense potential as a game-changer for defenders, providing advanced capabilities to strengthen cyberdefences and mitigate emerging threats.

To find out more about the current cybersecurity and IT challenges facing enterprises in the Middle East,

CXO Priorities, in partnership with Recorded Future, surveyed 150 CISOs from across the GCC to find out about the key challenges they’ re encountering, how they anticipate AI will impact the industry and how they’ re planning for future investment.

In this month’ s Secure Horizons feature, we take a look at this research and some of the key findings.

CISOs embracing AI

For the cybersecurity sector, AI has been referred to as a‘ double-edged sword’. While it offers significant advantages for defenders – particularly through proactive monitoring, automation and augmenting the well-reported skills gap – it has also been used to launch sophisticated attacks with worrying ease.

Despite this, many organisations are leveraging AI to stay ahead of evolving threats, with more than half of respondents already using AI or Machine Learning tools to enhance their cybersecurity. For almost one third, this technology is being used‘ extensively’, while 26 % are using it in more limited applications. A further 21 % plan to use AI tools in the near future, while the remaining 23 % have no plans to. This may highlight the varying maturity levels of AI in cybersecurity across the region and, as this technology becomes better understood, may change.

The greatest advantage of using AI in cybersecurity, according to our respondents, is for proactive threat detection and prevention, with 29 % of the vote. This is closely followed by improved efficiency in monitoring and incident response( 26 %). This result demonstrates how CISOs in the region perceive AI to be most impactful, enabling a more proactive cybersecurity posture. It will also support human

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