{"id":26241,"date":"2026-09-23T09:24:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T17:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2026\/09\/23\/ai-changes-cyber-spending-but-wheres-the-line-item-for-tokens\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T09:24:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T17:24:27","slug":"ai-changes-cyber-spending-but-wheres-the-line-item-for-tokens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2026\/09\/23\/ai-changes-cyber-spending-but-wheres-the-line-item-for-tokens\/","title":{"rendered":"AI changes cyber spending \u2014\u00a0but where\u2019s the line-item for tokens?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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AI is increasing both the volume and speed of cyberthreats, pushing organizations to invest more in AI-powered security capabilities to keep pace. Yet overall cybersecurity budgets are barely growing, suggesting that much of the increased spending on AI is coming at the expense of traditional security tools.<\/p>\n

A recent survey by IANS and Artico<\/a> shows that AI investments in cybersecurity have become a priority for 69% of organizations, with 24% giving AI its own security budget line. Others are folding their AI spending into broader security, IT, data, and innovation budgets.<\/p>\n

AI is accounting now for about 3% of the average security budget, and the survey found that organizations are directing much of that portion toward AI-enabled security tools and software. . AI investment is flowing into security operations automation and AI capabilities embedded in existing workflows. Some related spending is being funded outside security budgets through IT, data, or innovation functions, the report notes.<\/p>\n

The spending momentum appears likely to continue, with many organizations that increased AI security investments by more than 10% this year expecting another double-digit increase in the next budget cycle.<\/p>\n

The survey also suggests that significant changes are coming to the security workforce as AI adoption accelerates. With 91% saying so, CISOs are nearly unanimous in expecting AI to boost the productivity of their existing teams over the next year, while 81% anticipate a need for new cybersecurity roles and skills. Rather than eliminating security jobs, the technology is expected to shift the composition and focus of security teams as organizations automate more routine work and demand greater expertise with AI.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know about how AI security investments are playing out as they become a priority for most organizations. While overall spending is not the concern of the day, spending on AI compute cycles is on the radar for many.<\/p>\n

[ See webinar: <\/strong>Autonomy, Not Autopilot \u2014 Get Real About Agentic SOCs<\/strong><\/a> ]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shadow AI shifts line-items in cyber spending<\/h2>\n

Dave Gerry, CEO of Bugcrowd, said much of the current AI spending trend involves a reshuffling of existing security priorities rather than a significant expansion of overall budgets. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly reallocation. Very few CISOs are walking into a board meeting and getting a bigger number.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather, they are moving money out of areas such as penetration testing and point-in-time testing and putting it into capabilities such as continuous validation. They\u2019re also adding budget for monitoring what employees are doing with AI tools.<\/p>\n

\u201cShadow AI is the new shadow IT. The total stays flat, the line items look nothing like last year\u2019s.\u201d<\/em>
\u2014Dave Gerry<\/a><\/p>\n

The greatest increases in AI spending, Gerry said, are for application security (AppSec) and offensive validation, as organizations grapple with a growing gap between the vulnerabilities they can discover and those they can fix.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDiscovery isn\u2019t the constraint anymore. Teams can find far more than they can fix, so money is moving toward triage and prioritization, the work that turns findings into decisions.\u201d<\/em>
\u2014<\/em>Dave Gerry<\/p>\n

Identity is another line item that could see a substantial increase in spending as organizations rush to address the access-control issues that contribute to many AI agent failures, he said.<\/p>\n

Agentic AI: An evolving investment area<\/h2>\n

Agentic AI is emerging as a growing area of investment as organizations move quickly to deploy autonomous agents across business and security workflows, including increasingly agentic SOC operations. Nonetheless, not many organizations appear to be establishing dedicated budget lines for these investments. Instead, much of the spending is being carved out of existing SOC tooling and automation budgets, potentially at the expense of other priorities, security experts say.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few teams have a dedicated agentic AI line item. It\u2019s mostly being carved out of existing SOC tooling and automation budgets, which means something else got quietly deprioritized to pay for it.\u201d<\/em>
\u2014<\/em>Dave Gerry<\/p>\n

Other organizations are spreading agentic AI investments across dedicated AI security programs, traditional security budgets, and broader enterprise AI initiatives. Security experts expect that over time many of these capabilities will become embedded in areas such as identity and access management, insider risk, data security, and security operations. That is partly because securing AI agents cuts across multiple parts of the organization, said Diana Kelley, CISO at Noma Security.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe business unit or a dedicated AI team may build the agents, engineering or DevOps teams may deploy them, IT may operate the underlying infrastructure, and the CISO may be expected to manage the security risk. The funding model should reflect that shared responsibility instead of forcing the entire cost into an existing SOC or automation budget.\u201d<\/em>
\u2014<\/em>Diana Kelley<\/a><\/p>\n

How AI reshapes what organizations need to secure<\/h2>\n

Kelley sees AI spending as falling into two broad categories:<\/p>\n