AI Agents Are Being Drafted Into the Cyber Defense Forces of Corporations

The rise of generative AI and large language models has drastically shifted the cybersecurity landscape, empowering attackers with easy-to-use tools that can create realistic video and voice deepfakes, personalized phishing campaigns, and malware and malicious code. This surge in AI-powered cybercrime has opened the door for AI on the defense as well. Agentic AI is becoming deeply embedded in enterprises, not only in sectors like finance and legal but increasingly in cybersecurity, where AI agents are emerging as key assets for detection, analysis, and alerts. "It's a massive challenge to detect, contain, investigate and respond across larger companies," said Brian Murphy, CEO of cybersecurity technology company ReliaQuest. "AI is allowing us to remove a lot of that noise, that tier one or tier two work, that work that's often not at all relevant to something that could be threatening to an organization." Putting tools in the hands of human workers that automate menial or time-consuming tasks frees them to focus on more important work — a core promise of agentic AI. In a message shared with Amazon employees in June, CEO Andy Jassy said, "We have strong conviction that AI agents will change how we all work and live," envisioning "billions of these agents, across every company and in every imaginable field," helping workers "focus less on rote work and more on thinking strategically" while making "our jobs even more exciting and fun than they are today." Murphy shares a similar view for cybersecurity, where workers are inundated with tasks they likely shouldn't spend time on, leading to burnout and exacerbating the shortage of skilled talent. He also highlighted how AI is enhancing attackers' capabilities. "Those phishing emails, they used to look almost laughable with the misspellings and the fonts wrong," he said. "AI can take the average bad actor and make them better, and so the trick is if you're on the defensive side, they have to use AI because of the reality of what AI can do." ReliaQuest recently released GreyMatter Agentic Teammates, autonomous, role-based AI agents designed to take on tasks that detection engineers or threat intelligence researchers would otherwise perform on a security operations team. "Think of it as this persona that teams up with a human, and the human is prompting that agentic AI, so the human knows what to do," Murphy explained. "It's like having a teammate that takes that incident response analyst and multiplies their capability." For example, international executive travel often triggers security alerts when devices connect from foreign networks. Instead of manually verifying each alert, an agentic AI teammate can automate this task or manage similar processes for board meetings, off-sites, or other large gatherings. "There's hundreds of things like that," Murphy added. Justin Dellaportas, chief information and security officer at communications technology company Syniverse, noted that AI agents have automated basic cybersecurity tasks like combing through logs and are now starting to automate actions such as quarantining flagged emails and restricting access from compromised accounts. "[AI] is being used by criminals to efficiently find vulnerabilities and exploits into organizations at scale, and all of that is resulting in them having a higher success rate, getting initial access sooner and moving laterally into an organization quicker than we've seen," he said. "Cyber defenders really need to lean into this technology now more than ever to stay ahead of this evolving threat landscape and the pace of cyber criminals." Dellaportas described the adoption of agentic AI in cybersecurity as a "crawl, walk, run methodology." Organizations first deploy AI to reason and take action, then iterate based on previous outcomes. "I come back to a kind of trust but verify, and then as we get confidence in its effectiveness, we'll move on to different problems," he said.

What AI Bots Mean for Cybersecurity Workers

While AI agents can take over some tasks from human cybersecurity professionals, Dellaportas sees the technology as augmentation rather than replacement. Murphy agreed, emphasizing that agentic AI helps with automation and addresses the skills gap many organizations face when filling cybersecurity roles. "There may be a shortage of trained and skilled cybersecurity professionals, but there's no shortage of people who would like to be trained and skilled at cybersecurity," he said. "The reason that knowledge transfer takes so long in cyber is that when you get your entry-level job, it's equivalent to working on a help desk." Murphy acknowledged the need for education around deploying agentic AI and concerns about AI decision-making. Dellaportas added that since agentic AI is used across various business lines, conversations about how AI tools can help achieve objectives are already familiar. AI agents are gaining traction inside companies. A May 2025 Gartner poll of 147 CIOs and IT leaders found that 24% had deployed some AI agents, with over 50% of those agents working across functions like IT, HR, and accounting, compared to just 23% in external customer-facing roles. Avivah Litan, distinguished vice president analyst on Gartner's AI strategy team, said companies experimenting with agentic AI in cybersecurity find it "moderately beneficial," though questions remain about scaling beyond simpler tasks. "Security has always been the low-hanging fruit use case for AI," Litan said. "You first saw AI show up with fraud detection, so it's 100% that we're going to have digital security assistance in the future doing work and freeing up staff to take on the new attacks; the key will be making sure they stay up with all this innovation so they can see the whole attack surface." Murphy believes corporate adoption of agentic AI in cybersecurity may outpace sectors like finance or legal. "They absolutely understand AI is being used against them, and the only way to defend that is to use it in their own defense," he said.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

AI Agents in Cybersecurity

Q: How are AI agents being used in cybersecurity? A: AI agents are being used for detection, analysis, and issuing alerts. They automate time-consuming tasks like sifting through logs, verifying alerts from foreign networks, quarantining flagged emails, and restricting access from compromised accounts. Q: What is the main benefit of using AI agents in cybersecurity? A: AI agents help remove noise and automate tier-one and tier-two tasks, freeing up human cybersecurity professionals to focus on more critical threats and strategic work. They also help combat the shortage of skilled talent by augmenting existing teams. Q: How does AI enhance cyberattack capabilities? A: AI can empower attackers by creating realistic deepfakes, personalizing phishing campaigns, and generating malicious code, effectively making average bad actors more proficient. Q: Is AI replacing cybersecurity professionals? A: Experts like Justin Dellaportas believe AI agents are augmenting rather than replacing human cybersecurity professionals, allowing them to focus on higher-level tasks. Q: What is the adoption strategy for AI agents in cybersecurity? A: The adoption is described as a "crawl, walk, run methodology," where organizations start by deploying AI for reasoning and action, then iterate and build confidence before tackling more complex problems.

Crypto Market AI's Take

The increasing sophistication of AI-powered cyber threats necessitates a proactive and equally advanced defense. The integration of agentic AI into corporate cybersecurity forces mirrors the broader trend of AI adoption across industries, including finance. For organizations looking to enhance their security posture and operational efficiency, exploring the capabilities of AI agents is becoming not just an advantage, but a necessity. Understanding how these AI tools can be leveraged, while also being aware of the risks and the need for human oversight, is crucial for navigating the evolving threat landscape.

AI agents are being drafted into the cyber defense forces of corporations

AI Agents Are Being Drafted Into the Cyber Defense Forces of Corporations

What AI Bots Mean for Cybersecurity Workers

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

AI Agents in Cybersecurity

Crypto Market AI's Take

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