AI Is Reshaping Cybersecurity Teams Faster Than They Can Hire

Two-thirds of security leaders — 67% — say their teams are under pressure and struggling to scale to meet evolving business needs. That figure comes from Barracuda's Cybersecurity Skills Gap report, which surveyed 2,000 IT and security decision-makers, and it frames a problem practitioners already feel daily: AI demands and identity-based attacks are landing on teams with no extra budget.

The numbers get sharper from there. Half of respondents say their security professionals are expected to support growing digital operations without additional resources. The most common challenges cited are AI-related risks (68%) and advanced identity and phishing threats (67%), including business email compromise, OAuth abuse, and multi-factor authentication bypass.

Barracuda's Siroui Mushegian, senior vice president and chief information officer, put it bluntly: "AI is changing the cybersecurity landscape faster than many security teams can build the necessary skills, visibility, and governance."

Her prescription: "Organizations need to reshape their security teams, combining the power of AI and automation with human expertise, judgment, and visibility."

Is AI cutting security head count?

Yes — 56% of respondents report a reduction in security head count linked to AI, split evenly between entry-level and senior roles. But the roles aren't simply disappearing. As AI absorbs routine analysis and response work, human jobs are shifting toward threat investigation, incident leadership, automation governance, and business risk management.

For practitioners, that's a re-skilling mandate, not just a layoff story. The junior analyst pipeline is thinning at the same moment senior roles demand new AI-adjacent competencies.

What skills do CSOs actually need?

Foundry — CSO Online's parent company — has a forthcoming Security Priorities report that names the gaps. The top areas CSOs say their teams must get better at:

• Cloud security (35%)
• Securing agentic AI technology (34%)
• Securing AI/machine-learning-enabled technology (30%)

The same report identifies the hardest roles to fill: cloud security architects, AI security specialists, and forensics analysts. Hiring managers chasing those profiles are competing in a market where Europe alone is short more than 300,000 cybersecurity professionals, according to research by the AI Workforce Consortium.

What does the gap cost?

Pluralsight's Tech Skills Report 2026 attaches a price tag. Some 41% of UK cybersecurity professionals estimate skills gaps cost their organizations at least £380,000 (US$500,000) per year — roughly what a mid-sized security team member costs an employer annually, all in. The estimated cost includes hiring and outsourcing expenses, lost revenue, abandoned projects, and poorly maintained technology.

The damage isn't only financial. A quarter of cybersecurity professionals say their organization experienced security incidents or vulnerabilities in the past 12 months due to skills gaps. And 43% admit skills gaps are a common reason for abandoning cybersecurity projects altogether.

Pluralsight concludes that AI adoption is increasing demand for cybersecurity expertise precisely as the supply of qualified people tightens — a squeeze that shows up in project cancellations and incident reports, not just training budgets.

Where the jobs are moving

The AI Workforce Consortium — an industry group backed by Cisco, Google, Microsoft, IBM, SAP, and others — tracked the hiring market directly. Cybersecurity job postings requiring AI skills have doubled year over year across G7 countries. Senior roles requiring AI skills are up 65% year-on-year, compared with just 5.9% for junior roles.

That asymmetry tells you where the market thinks value sits: experienced security people who can govern AI-driven tooling, not entry-level staff running it. The consortium's research also points to growing demand for practical experience and human skills alongside technical credentials.

The practical takeaway for security leaders: budget for retraining your existing senior staff on AI governance now, because the external market for that profile is doubling in price and shrinking in supply every quarter.