AI Arms Race to Define 2026 Security Landscape

Fortinet's Windsor Talks Democratized AI, Rising Compliance Risks and Surge in Deepfake-Driven Threats Tom Field (SecurityEditor) • December 11, 2025

As 2026 approaches, cybersecurity leaders are prepared for an AI-backed arms race that will challenge the balance between defenders and attackers.

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With generative AI widely accessible, enterprises and threat actors are relying on the same technologies – one to innovate and one to exploit. Carl Windsor, CISO at Fortinet, says that the widespread adoption of AI tools has democratized the technology across business functions, introducing technical risks to nontechnical teams who lack a strong security knowledge. This growing reliance could lead to exposed or mishandled data, setting organizations up to contend with the "black box" challenge of implicitly putting trust in AI-generated responses.

As the threat landscape evolves, Windsor says the CISO role has transcended information security and become a business ...