Are You Ready for 2026?

What we are seeing are more complex issues and significant cyber threats that organizations are ill equipped to handle, most significant being AI-driven social engineering at 63%, ransomware and extorsion attacks at 54%, followed by insider threats (intentional accidental) at 35%. The findings highlight critical program gaps that stem from a reactive security culture that doesn’t prioritize threat modeling and focuses primarily on incident management.

A shortage of AI talent and experience threatens continual improvement in the industry, but also poses incredible opportunity for the digital trust professionals who choose to upskill and certify in this area to stay relevant and to lead in this space.

Without a defined scope, policies, processes, roles, responsibilities, use cases, risk management, and training, unchecked volatility in AI inputs, processing, and outcomes will create a perfect storm, with its casualties being one or many from a list including negative reputation and trust impacts, negative regulatory consequences, negative legal consequences, and negative financial consequences. Taking the time to build a sustainable AI foundation will earn the respect of an organization's stakeholders and competitors alike because risk-sensitive AI-driven value will not only have been created, but it would have been created sustainably.