Speak to CISOs, and they will corroborate that autonomous AI agents now outpace humans in defensive security. The growing number of companies specialising in agentic AI to counter bad actors is rapidly transforming the landscape.
Just look at Cerby, which specialises in agentic AI workflows to govern and secure “unmanageable” enterprise applications, or Veratad Technologies, which recently launched the Veratad VX™ Agent Toolkit, giving third-party agents built-in identity proofing and age verification layers to interact with commercial services.
Non-human agents serve a dual purpose in governance and application security, particularly given the “growing mismatch between machine-speed attacks and human-speed response.” These observations come from a new report published by Kai, an agentic AI cybersecurity platform that executes end-to-end security tasks at machine speed while maintaining human-expert accuracy.
The 500 CISOs surveyed for the State of Autonomous Defence Report recognised that AI-driven attacks far outperform human responses and traditional human-managed vulnerability management techniques.
“AI is transforming how organisations defend themselves and shifting the economics of cyber defence,” said Galina Antova, co-founder and CEO of Kai. “The real opportunity today is trusted automation that doesn’t just prioritise risk; it eliminates it, giving security teams a clear path to zero. That’s why we built Auto Remediation: to close the loop between detection and action. The next phase of cybersecurity must let security teams respond at the pace modern threats demand”.
In fact, 63% of respondents believe attackers currently hold the advantage due to AI.
Read the full 2026 State of Autonomous Defense Report, here.
Find Cerby and Veratad Technologies on the show floor at Identity Week America 2026.
This shift toward machine-speed defense, autonomous AI, and identity security will be a major focal point at Identity Week America 2026 (September 2–3, 2026). Attendees tackling AI-driven threats can explore these challenges directly during the AI & Cybersecurity Threats and Agentic AI tracks. Key speakers include Brian Brittingham (Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC), Naval Criminal Investigative Service) and Bridgette Trela (Assistant Special Agent in Charge, FBI Cincinnati Division’s Cyber and Intelligence Branch, Federal Bureau of Investigation) alongside sessions on agentic access control hosted by sponsors such as Cerby.
