This is the year CISOs unlock AI’s full potential

In 2025, CISOs will have powerful new capabilities as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) continues to mature. Evolving beyond providing answers to questions, GenAI will provide proactive recommendations, take action, and communicate in a personalized manner. This transition will enable CISOs and their teams to unlock the true impact of GenAI to bolster cybersecurity defenses.

CISOs already recognize that AI offers a critical advantage as they increasingly look to use AI to prioritize threats and vulnerabilities. Successful GenAI adoption in cybersecurity can be the make-or-break between an effective cybersecurity program and a failure to protect the business due to resource constraints. Here are three predictions on the impact GenAI technology will have on the cybersecurity landscape in 2025:

AI assistants will keep cybersecurity budgets flat

In 2025, many security leaders will continue to face constraints, such as flat cybersecurity budgets, relatively high interest rates, and limited talent availability. In this scenario, GenAI will act as a key enabler for cybersecurity teams to continue to meet the increased demands placed on them despite limited resources. With GenAI assistants, CISOs will be able to fill in the resource and talent gap by automating and streamlining data collection, analysis, and reporting. Gen AI will be key to a clear, real-time view of the organization’s security posture, fast decision-making and risk response, and automated compliance.

Those CISOs who have already implemented GenAI assistants will reap the benefits of their foresight with more valuable insights. Real-time context awareness driven by AI assistants will help them strengthen their security posture, keep cyber risk at acceptable levels, and maintain regulatory compliance. CISOs will be able to do this and more with fewer resources in 2025 by leveraging AI-powered assistants.

GenAI will be a lifeline for smaller companies

With an ever-expanding attack surface, small businesses operating with very tight cybersecurity budgets and small team sizes are at a greater risk of falling victim to breaches and exploits. GenAI’s ability to automate workflows, such as vulnerability assessment, prioritization, and remediation, will allow them to benefit from enterprise-grade capabilities without the need for extensive resources. As a result, in 2025, smaller companies that utilize GenAI will be able to defend their endpoints better, deter attackers, and harden their defenses against hackers.

Specialized GenAI models will outpace generalized models

Following a period of GenAI experimentation, business leaders are increasingly focused on return on investment (ROI) and industry-specific customization when selecting GenAI tools. Technical integration, ongoing support, and scalability are critical for moving beyond initial pilots into production.

In cybersecurity, specialized GenAI models can offer greater ROI with better threat detection and response, lower false positives, and improved incident management – all of which are necessary to mitigate growing attack vectors. In our experience, mature organizations’ cybersecurity teams can bolster with mid-level security using specialized GenAI solutions to gain 4X productivity gains in processing their cybersecurity data, helping them reduce cyber risk by at least two-thirds in just six months.

Additionally, as new regulatory requirements are introduced, specialized GenAI models can quickly provide a gap analysis, along with actionable next steps, enabling organizations to stay compliant. This capability is especially valuable for highly regulated industries, such as healthcare and insurance.

For CISOs who want to bridge the gap between initial interest and realized value, a thoughtful approach to GenAI integration is necessary: How will your solution avoid “hallucinations”? How will it maintain role-based access control? What are your privacy guardrails to use the information on the internet safely? By leveraging the capabilities of GenAI tools and assistants, these CISOs will be able to overcome static budget woes, talent shortages, and the complexities of an evolving threat landscape.