Why AI Cybersecurity Programs Are More Important Than Ever
Why AI Cybersecurity Programs Are More Important Than Ever
Publish Date: 2026-05-28 19:19:00
Source Domain: www.desmoinesregister.com
May 28, 2026, 6:19 p.m. CT
AI has opened up many doors for businesses and individuals alike, but those open doors sometimes let bad actors follow close behind.
AI systems, programs, and platforms are perhaps some of the most transformative tools to have entered mainstream industries in the past five years. As useful as many AI tools have been, however, they’ve also introduced or otherwise exacerbated several problems, with one of the most important being security. This issue has necessitated the development of AI security measures.
What is AI Security?
AI security doesn’t refer to a single program or practice, but instead a series of processes designed to work in conjunction with each other to limit unauthorized access to an organization’s AI systems, data pipelines, models, users, permissions, cloud infrastructure, and connected applications. Though many of these processes incorporate AI in some way, some benefit from human oversight and intervention.
For example, while an organization may use AI to improve their threat detection and incident response programs, they may still rely on a cybersecurity team to actually address the issues those programs flag.
Ultimately, both AI and security experts work together to enhance an organization’s security posture by minimizing its exposure to external and internal threats. How a given security team approaches this may differ depending on the tools they have available to them and the amount of data they need to protect; a healthcare enterprise tasked with keeping patient records safe will likely invest more in AI security than a small bakery, for instance.
How AI Security Works to Keep Sensitive Data Safe
Given how many industries have adopted AI to some degree—customer service, software development, document review, marketing—AI security has become as much of a business governance issue as it is a response to technical vulnerabilities.
For instance, according to the 2025 “Cost of a Data Breach Report,” the global…
