The AI-enabled discovery of cyber vulnerabilities has topped the list of emerging risks facing organisations globally, as the technology dominated the top five concerns in the corporate risk landscape, according to a new report from Gartner.

The Gartner Quarterly Emerging Risk Report revealed that rapid advances in AI are making global leaders concerned that it could accelerate the discovery and exploitation of previously unknown cyber vulnerabilities.

"The ability of AI to increase the efficiency and accessibility of vulnerability discovery is making it increasingly difficult for traditional risk management approaches to keep pace," said Kevin Mercado, Senior Principal Analyst, Research, in the Gartner Risk & Audit Practice.

This is the first time that AI-driven discovery of cyber vulnerabilities has entered the top emerging risks for businesses, following recent reports globally of AI-driven cyber attacks.

"Without corresponding improvements in governance, security operations, and remediation capabilities, AI-driven vulnerability discovery may outpace organisational defences, increasing the likelihood of significant cyber incidents and operational disruption," Mercado said.

AI-related risks dominate concerns

Other AI-related emerging risks include agentic AI, information integrity risk, and the AI workforce preparedness gap, according to the report.

Leaders are concerned that the deployment of agentic AI could lead to decisions and actions that are not aligned with organisational policies, goals, legal requirements, and ethical principles.

This, in turn, could lead to operational disruptions, compliance challenges, and reputational harm, the Gartner report read.

Information integrity risk, which was previously the top emerging concern for business leaders, placed fourth in the second quarter.

This concerns leaders being wary of costly decisions and misinformed strategies amid reduced access to accurate information due to the proliferation of unreliable and low-quality public datasets, AI-generated content, and politicisation of data.

Read the full article here: