Investor Gilly Shwed predicts an imminent, dangerous gap where AI-driven threat actors operate at a speed and sophistication that human-led security teams cannot match. This transitional phase, before defensive AI can fully take over, poses an unprecedented risk to critical infrastructure.

For the military, the toughest AI adoption challenge isn't on offense, but defense: overcoming institutional resistance to granting AI the autonomy needed to defend networks at machine speed. A human-alert system is too slow, creating a major bureaucratic and command-and-control dilemma.

AI enables attackers to launch scalable, rapid attacks, overwhelming defenders who are left to manually monitor, validate, and patch vulnerabilities. This dramatically shifts the balance of power, creating a significant strategic disadvantage for cybersecurity teams in a way not seen before.

Kevin Mandia predicts that within two years, all cyberattacks will be AI-driven. The sheer speed of these threats makes human-in-the-loop defense obsolete. The only viable response is a fully autonomous, AI-powered defensive system to counter AI-born threats.

The sophistication of attacks like the Axios NPM compromise necessitates a shift to AI-driven defense. Tools like Cognition's Devin Review are reportedly catching malware before public disclosure, indicating that organizations must adopt AI security tools to counter the rising threat of automated, AI-powered attacks.

AI tools drastically accelerate an attacker's ability to find weaknesses, breach systems, and steal data. The attack window has shrunk from days to as little as 23 minutes, making traditional, human-led response times obsolete and demanding automated, near-instantaneous defense.

Adversaries are using AI to create an "asymptotic attack pressure" with novel exploits moving at machine speed. Traditional human-speed defense is insufficient. The solution is an autonomous defensive system that mirrors the attackers, creating a corresponding counter-pressure to analyze threats and respond in real-time.

The increasing use of AI by malicious actors is creating an exponentially expanding threat landscape. Human-only security teams cannot keep pace, creating a forcing function for organizations to adopt autonomous AI agents for defensive purposes just to survive.

Previously, attackers spent weeks inside a system before striking. AI agents can now find and exploit vulnerabilities at machine speed, rendering traditional detection insufficient. The focus must now be on immediate recovery and resilience, assuming a breach has already occurred.