The cyber-security stack is turning over. Autonomous coding, faster iteration, and AI acceleration are helping every company move faster, but also introducing vulnerabilities and new threats at a pace that traditional security tools are proving futile against. AI security products like Prophet (security operations), Nebulock (autonomous threat hunting), Dream (security for governments) and Adaptive (security awareness against AI threats) are making great progress in helping security teams close the gap, but much more work needs to be done.

Across our team, several themes keep surfacing. Identity remains the primary failure mode in most breaches, but AI is accelerating attacker tradecraft, from automated reconnaissance to large-scale credential abuse and supply-chain infiltration. Offensive capabilities are evolving quickly as red-teaming moves from handcrafted exploits to autonomous systems that can chain vulnerabilities, plan multi-step intrusions, and operate at a cost structure defenders aren’t used to matching. Model misuse is shifting from an abstract risk to a practical threat surface as agents gain tool use and long-horizon planning. Inside security programs, teams are moving from AI “helper” tools to AI-dependent workflows across detection, response and identity, with consolidation pressure building on incumbents that can’t deliver measurable risk reduction. And as phishing, impersonation, and account compromise become lived experiences for employees and leadership, identity validation and behavioral baselining are becoming continuous, context-aware controls rather than point-in-time checks.

Here’s what else we expect to see in 2026:

Mark Sutton, Bain Capital CISO

“We should expect meaningful shifts in attacker behavior and organizational response. Ransomware actors will likely continue pivoting toward data exfiltration rather than encryption, and supply chain compromises will increase as our hyperconnected ecosystems expand. From a practitioner’s perspective, operational resilience initiatives across all industries will become more important than ever. The opportunity and likelihood for a technology driven material incident, cyber or otherwise, has never been higher. Ultimately, our ability to resist, adapt, and respond will determine the success and maturity of our security programs.”

Jeff Williams, operating partner

“Ransomware will remain the top threat to business continuity and data protection in 2026, and AI will continue to accelerate the speed, scale, and sophistication of these attacks. AI is dramatically lowering the barrier to entry for cybercriminals: Automating reconnaissance across networks, public sources, social platforms, and corporate infrastructure to identify vulnerabilities and high-value targets with minimal human involvement.”

Enrique Salem, partner

“MCP adoption will continue but will be limited until we have a control plane with centralized identity management and AI native protection that can be applied consistently across the enterprise. Adoption will be limited to non-sensitive workloads.”

Saanya Ojha, partner

“We’re entering 2026 with models that can call tools, plan multi-step workflows, and act with growing autonomy. Capability is compounding faster than caution. We’re still in the Garden-of-Eden phase of safety - enchanted by capability, barely aware of the adversarial horizon. My expectation is that next year will bring at least one meaningful model-misuse event, and when it does, the hierarchy of concerns will flip overnight. Safety will leap from a compliance checkbox to the primary competitive axis.”

Rak Garg, partner

“For decades, the inability to simulate attacks has led to an industry defined by inside-out point products, from ASM to ZTNA. Anthropic’s most recent threat intelligence report, and paper with CMU cybersecurity researchers, shows how models can autonomously hack websites and execute global infiltration campaigns with surprisingly good accuracy, at shockingly low cost. I believe 2026 will see the rapid scaling of an autonomous red-teaming tool, powered by offensive expertise and thinking, that secures companies from the outside in, obviating tens of billions in spend that currently go to scanners, pen-testers, and PDF vulnerability assessments.”

Akhil Aggarwal, associate

“We expect security teams and vendors to move from AI experiments to AI dependence next year. Improvements in foundation models and security-specific data pipelines are making it far easier to embed AI into detection, response, and identity workflows. At the same time, AI-native security challengers are proving there is real demand for autonomous SOCs and developer-centric security tooling. Incumbents are now under pressure to decide quickly where to build, where to partner, and where to buy in order to keep pace, often using AI as the catalyst to simplify and consolidate fragmented tool stacks. We’re excited to see a security market that not only ships new AI features, but measurably reduces risk and burnout for security teams as a result.”

Nicole Falasco, industry partnerships manager

“2026 will be the year when top-down leadership pressure and bottom-up employee experience converge to redefine enterprise security. As more people across an organization, including its leaders, unfortunately experience phishing, impersonation, and account compromise in their daily digital lives, the impact can no longer be abstracted away into ongoing risk reviews. Security becomes a lived reality, not a distant function. This convergence will push companies to replace rigid, rule-based tools with AI-native systems that can dynamically validate identity, intent, and behavior at every step. What emerges is a shift toward embedded, adaptive security layers that operate continuously and quietly in the background, reducing risk without adding friction.”

If you're a forward-thinking security leader interested in getting plugged into our CxO network, reach out to Nicole at nfalasco@baincapital.com. If you're building in security, reach out to Rak at rgarg@baincapital.com.