Calculating the ROI of AI in cybersecurity
Calculating the ROI of AI in cybersecurity
https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/Calculating-the-ROI-of-AI-in-cybersecurity
Publish Date: 2026-03-16 13:12:00
Source Domain: www.techtarget.com
As with many technologies, AI and cybersecurity are becoming increasingly intertwined. An organization can expect AI to support the cybersecurity mission in multiple ways, including reducing overall risk, boosting efficiency and making security more cost-effective.
What’s not easy to determine is the ROI of AI cybersecurity investments.
Measuring AI’s ROI: Metrics matter
When it comes to AI investments in cybersecurity, the ROI conversation must begin with the right metrics. Not all value shows up on a balance sheet, so security leaders need to think across three distinct categories: efficiency gains, risk reduction and cost avoidance.
Efficiency gains are often the most immediate and measurable metric. AI can effectively multiply the capacity of a security team without adding head count. Rather than asking how many people AI replaces, ask how many more actions your existing team can take with AI’s assistance. The metric here is throughput, which is the number of incidents investigated, configurations reviewed or alerts triaged per analyst per day, before and after AI deployment.
Risk reduction is harder to quantify, but it is arguably more important for conversations with the board. Relevant metrics include mean time to detect (MTTD), mean time to respond (MTTR), reduction in the number of unaddressed vulnerabilities over a given period, and improvements in coverage across the attack surface. Security leaders should also track whether AI is closing the gap on configuration and patch management work that used to slip through the cracks. The common complaint, “We didn’t catch that because we didn’t have enough people,” often stymies security organizations.
Another metric to consider is cost reduction. This includes avoided breach costs, reduced reliance on outside professional services for routine security hygiene and the cost differential between scaling AI capabilities and scaling head count to achieve the same outcomes. Reports from Gartner, IBM and…
