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AI is cybersecurity’s biggest threat

It’s also its greatest defense

By

Mandy Andress

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The biggest threat in our rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape is artificial intelligence (AI).1 It’s also our greatest defense.

Cybersecurity is a high-stakes game where everything is on the line and decisions have to be made fast. For years, cybersecurity strategy has been about increasing visibility to make informed decisions from vast amounts of data. However, in the ever-expanding security threat landscape, there’s so much information you don’t know until your systems are at risk. To combat sophisticated threats, organizations have to use their limited resources to prioritize adaptability. And the key to adaptable systems? AI.

AI-powered solutions can offer cybersecurity teams real-time insights into the context of their environments for continuous monitoring. AI is no longer just a defensive tool — it’s actively transforming cybersecurity from reactive resilience to proactive antifragility. Based on threat landscape intelligence, risk factors, historical data, system logs, and so much more, AI models catch red flags immediately. It uses its knowledge of your system’s normal behavior to instantly notify you of changes and threats at scale, creating a robust and scalable security posture.

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AI-powered threat actors require AI-powered protection

Threat actors are using AI to create social engineering attacks and malware. Humans alone can’t keep up with the evolving attacks. The good news is that we don’t have to. 

We can thwart these attacks by staying up to date on threats, tuning our protection libraries, and augmenting our security analysts’ skills with AI technology. Traditional AI and machine learning are used for early response, identifying security threats using pattern recognition and anomaly detection and automating complex analytical and management tasks. Meanwhile, generative AI uses large language models (LLMs) to dive deeper into security data, allowing analysts to summarize collections of security events and rank suggested courses of action in natural language.

What is adaptive security in cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity — much like traveling — benefits from an adaptive mindset. Constantly evolving landscapes, real and digital, require constant learning. That’s how you effectively navigate your environment and secure your organization. Adaptive security is the practice of adopting a proactive approach to cybersecurity, which relies on continuous assessment of risks in real time, adjusting access controls and configurations on the fly, and responding to anomalies before the damage is done. It’s dynamic, real-time responses to evolving threats and environments. 

And real-time responses? They’re made possible by AI. AI enhances data analytics at scale, empowering the real-time adaptation that is essential for navigating today’s evolving threat landscape.

How AI is used in real-time threat detection and response

AI is valuable because it can anticipate and detect potential threats at scale. With the amount of data generated and the speed at which threats are evolving, organizations cannot rely on human cybersecurity teams alone. Manual threat analysis just won’t cut it. Enter AI for SecOps.

Gone are the days of having to analyze thousands of alerts. Security analysts are now armed with superhuman analytic capabilities that transform troves of raw data into high-value intelligence. AI-powered automation isn’t just a time-saver; it’s a force multiplier for every security team. AI can be implemented across use cases to improve adaptability, including threat landscape analysis, behavior monitoring, real-time response recommendations, and context understanding. 

Instead of navigating a fragmented, constantly shifting landscape with limited visibility, security professionals gain something closer to 20/20 vision. With AI-driven context and in-depth analysis, we can detect and interpret anomalies instantly. Your system can use contextual cues to recommend the best course of action in real time. 

AI is introducing a significant shift in cybersecurity by enabling a deeper — and quicker — understanding of environmental context. For example, we use the Elastic AI Assistant to streamline the threat intelligence reporting process, allowing analysts to input information from multiple resources and create a usable report via custom templates stored within our knowledge base. These advancements are expected to change the nature of cybersecurity roles, not by replacing them, but by augmenting them.

Thanks to this transformation, cybersecurity professionals can concentrate on more meaningful, engaging tasks. Analysts, in particular, may find their roles more dynamic and rewarding as repetitive, low-value work is reduced and strategic, high-impact contributions become the norm.

As AI brings unmatched scale and speed to the field of cybersecurity, security can move from reactive to proactive.

From resilience to antifragility: A new security paradigm

Resilience is no longer king. The ability to bounce back quickly was what we used to measure the efficacy of a cybersecurity strategy. Now, the paradigm is shifting. Antifragility goes a step further. It’s about using every incident as a catalyst for growth and improvement. An antifragility philosophy in security means we’re always learning, always adaptable. 

AI is uniquely suited to support organizations in the pursuit of antifragility. It learns from every incident, continuously improving models and recommendations, and identifies root causes and system weaknesses that empower security teams to take a proactive stance.

SecOps continues to evolve

Security operations (SecOps) used to be defined by endless alert triage and fire-fighting. But that’s changing. With AI, modern SecOps is becoming anticipatory, strategic, and integrated. AI-powered predictive analytics help teams flag vulnerabilities before they’re exploited by threat actors, while search and AI together can help teams uncover systemic risks, not just isolated incidents. By combining observability, threat intelligence, and automation, security teams can build a unified defense strategy. This not only enables proactive monitoring but also helps organizations improve their operational efficiency.

AI is no longer a nice-to-have for security teams

While cybersecurity remains an ever-evolving field, one thing is clear: If your organization is serious about modernizing its security program, AI isn’t optional — it’s foundational.

Without AI, security remains slow, reactive, and brittle. But with AI, organizations gain the speed and adaptability needed to move from resilience to antifragility frameworks. Systems can evolve with every countered threat, analysts can simplify and shorten response time with real-time actionable insights, and organizations can continue to improve their defenses and operations. 

Modernizing security systems with AI means machines handle the heavy-lift of speed and scale, while humans bring intuition, creativity, and strategic judgment to the table. This synergy of AI and human intelligence is redefining the nature of security work, making it more impactful and engaging.  

Ultimately, this is a story of adaptability and collaboration: It’s not just about protecting systems — it’s about building systems that protect themselves and improve with every challenge.

Elastic’s vision for AI-powered cybersecurity

At Elastic, we’ve created a GenAI-powered tool to enhance cybersecurity by helping you get to the heart of the most relevant security data for your needs. With Elastic AI Assistant, a generative AI application built on the Search AI Platform, you can create a generative AI experience that's tailored to your business, operational, and security team needs.

We've implemented the Elastic AI Assistant in our InfoSec team, bolstering Elastic's overall security and helping protect us from new threats with AI.

Learn how we created the AI Assistant and what results we’ve seen so far. 

Read (and watch) the case study.

Explore additional GenAI for security resources

Source:
1. McKinsey & Company, “AI is the greatest threat—and defense—in cybersecurity today. Here’s why.,” 2025.

The release and timing of any features or functionality described in this post remain at Elastic's sole discretion. Any features or functionality not currently available may not be delivered on time or at all.

In this blog post, we may have used or referred to third party generative AI tools, which are owned and operated by their respective owners. Elastic does not have any control over the third party tools and we have no responsibility or liability for their content, operation or use, nor for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of such tools. Please exercise caution when using AI tools with personal, sensitive or confidential information. Any data you submit may be used for AI training or other purposes. There is no guarantee that information you provide will be kept secure or confidential. You should familiarize yourself with the privacy practices and terms of use of any generative AI tools prior to use. 

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