Sentiment over how AI can benefit security teams varies greatly between executives and analysts, with new research highlighting a growing divide over the technology.
As organizations adopt AI in greater numbers, 71% of cybersecurity executives recorded in a new report by Exabeam stated that AI had “significantly improved” the productivity of their team.
But just 22% of cybersecurity analysts felt the same way, with those who used the tools daily reporting lower confidence in the technology as a whole.
Across a range of questions relating to cybersecurity AI adoption, Exabeam recorded a clear divide between employee views and executive hopes that AI can improve productivity and reduce cost.
The majority of analysts were skeptical about AI, pointing to technological issues such as hallucinations and false threat detections they would have to manually fix.
For example, while more than a third (38%) of executives expressed a willingness to let AI complete tasks independently, just 10% of analysts showed the same trust.
“It’s not that we don’t want to use AI — we just don’t trust it to work reliably without us watching it,” said one security analyst.
The research, From Hype to Help: How AI is (Really) Transforming Cybersecurity in 2025, was carried out by Sapio Research between February and March 2025, taking in responses from 1,000 cybersecurity workers across a range of roles and 17 countries.
While views on AI differ according to role, the report didn’t paint an entirely bleak picture of AI for cybersecurity. Taken together, the figures across all teams show a growing understanding of where AI could prove beneficial for the security operations center (SOC).
More than half (56%) of security teams reported increased productivity through AI adoption, with the same figure pointing to the benefits of the technology for threat detection.
Respondents said the technology could also shorten time to response, with 46% stating it could improve security incident responses and 42% arguing it helps with threat investigation.
“AI isn’t just a tool — it’s a catalyst for transformation,” wrote Gabrielle Hempel, security operations strategist at Exabeam.
“Security teams are evolving fast, with roles shifting toward automation, governance, and data integrity. To keep up with the pace and complexity of modern threats, teams must adopt agentic AI that can reason, act, and adapt on their behalf.”
AI driving internal changes
The study revealed the technology is also reshaping cybersecurity teams – with more than half of all respondents stating they have restructured in the wake of adoption.
The form that these changes take varies from firm to firm, but is weighted toward staff cuts. Among respondents, 37% had let security staff go, stating AI automation reduced the need for their former team size. Conversely, 18% went the other way and hired specialists in data security, governance, and automation.
Looking forward, sentiment toward how AI could harm cybersecurity careers follow the same dividing lines between executives and analysts. While 53% of executives thought AI would increase job security, just 19% of analysts felt the same.
The benefits of AI adoption may also vary greatly across different regions. In the report, 81% of respondents from India, Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey said they’d seen productivity gains from AI.
This compared to 60% who said the same across France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the UK (UKIE) and just 44% across Canada and the US (NAM).
Regional divides follow the same lines when it comes to the organizations most open to adopting autonomous AI, with 43% of IMETA ready for the change compared to under a third (32%) of UKIE respondents and under a quarter (23%) of NAM respondents.
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