Understanding Cyber Careers. Here’s What Will Change.

Human judgment remains essential in cyber security because AI can identify potential threats, but people are needed to confirm those findings, weigh the consequences, and decide how to respond. Cyber security professionals bring context, critical thinking, communication skills, and accountability to decisions that automated systems cannot make on their own.

For example, an AI system might detect unusual activity on a client’s account. A cyber security professional then determines whether it’s a genuine threat and if immediate action is required. During an incident, human judgment is needed to balance security concerns with business operations, communicate risk to leadership, and make decisions with available information.

Think of AI as part of an early warning and response system. It can act like a smoke detector and sprinkler system, identifying signs of trouble and responding quickly. You still need the fire department to show up. That’s where cyber security professionals come in, bringing the experience and judgment to understand the situation, coordinate the response, and determine what happens next.

ISC2’s 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Study also revealed that 72% of respondents believe AI creates a need for more strategic cyber security mindsets. As AI takes on more of the work involved in identifying and processing information, cyber security professionals can focus more on strategy, problem-solving, and decision-making.

In the 2010s, cyber threats centered around tactics such as stolen passwords, phishing campaigns, and ransomware. While those threats haven't disappeared, the tools and techniques behind them have become more sophisticated.

Today’s cyber criminals often use AI to create even more convincing phishing messages, impersonate people through deepfakes, and automate attacks. Organizations also face risks involving systems breaches, supply chain compromise, connected technologies, and vulnerabilities in AI systems themselves.

The pace of change is accelerating: According to the Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 from the World Economic Forum (WEF), 94% of surveyed leaders identified AI as the most significant driver of change in cyber security, while 87% identified AI-related vulnerabilities as the fastest growing risk.

What does this mean? As threats evolve, so does the work of protecting organizations from them. Cyber security professionals must continually adapt their tools, knowledge, and approach to keep up with new technologies.

Employers are increasingly looking for cyber security professionals with specialized technical skills and the ability to adapt as technology changes. ISC2 also reports in their 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Study that AI is the top skill 41% of respondents said their organizations needed, followed by cloud security. The study also found that 73% believe AI will create demand for more specialized cyber security skills, while 66% expect a broader skill set to be required across teams.

If you’re preparing for a career in cyber security, that means you’ll need a combination of technical knowledge and durable skills that remain valuable even as the industry changes, such as:

AI security is emerging as one of tech’s fast-growing specialties, creating new opportunities to use artificial intelligence to defend systems as well as to secure AI systems themselves. The WEF Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 report found that one-third of surveyed organizations do not have a process in place for assessing the security of AI tools before deployment. This highlights the need for experts who can work with AI tools to identify threats, strengthen defenses, or focus on protecting AI models from manipulation, misuse, and leakage.

One of the fastest growing careers in the U.S. serves a critical cyber security function, further illustrating the widening talent gap in the industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects employment of information security analysts to grow 21% across the nation from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations, though actual local growth can vary.

In addition, understanding how to effectively leverage tools like AI copilots and automation has become the new standard across industries, but none more so than in cyber security, where they serve a mission-critical purpose.

An AI copilot is an artificially intelligent assistant that works alongside cyber analysts to help analyze information, summarize alerts, draft incident reports, and answer questions about security data in plain language. Rather than replace the analyst, a copilot can help streamline the time-consuming work that surrounds cyber security decisions.

For example, security teams that monitor an organization’s systems for potential threats may receive thousands of alerts a day. An AI assistant can help sort and prioritize those alerts, correlate information from different sources, and identify patterns that require taking a closer look. This helps reduce some of the repetitive work such as alert triage, documentation, and data correlation. Instead of spending as much time reviewing routine information, analysts can devote more attention to investigating unusual activity, determining whether it represents an actual threat, and deciding how to respond.

The result is a shift in how and where cyber security professionals spend their time. AI can help process information and identify potential issues, allowing cyber analysts to apply context and judgment to determine the best way to handle each scenario.

One area where AI excels is threat detection, processing massive volumes of information, recognizing patterns, and detecting anomalies at machine speeds that would be difficult for a human to match. In cyber security, that can be analyzing logs, flagging unusual behavior, detecting potential threats, and helping automate routine responses to those threats.

As reported in the WEF Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 report, 77% of surveyed organizations have adopted AI for cyber security, with common uses including phishing detection, intrusion and anomaly response, and user-behavior analytics. Automation can also support actions such as blocking known-bad indicators and isolating endpoints. This allows security teams to respond more quickly and focus on situations that require deeper investigation.

Cyber criminals are also using generative and agentic AI to scale social engineering, automate exploitation, and increase the speed and sophistication of their attacks. These advanced capabilities mean cyber security professionals need to understand how AI can create new types of threats and how to use it to strengthen defenses against them.

If you’re considering a career in cyber security, your ability to learn, think critically, and apply new tools can help you stay ready for what comes next. That’s why our cyber security programs utilize a cyber range, a simulated environment where you practice responding to real-world cyber threat scenarios using AI-driven security tools and industry software.

In fact, our National Cyber League team students practiced extensively on our cyber range platform before earning a Top 12 national finish in the National Cyber League Spring 2026 competition.

You can also build connections and explore industry opportunities through our Future Cyber Defenders Scholars Program. Our cyber security programs also hold the NSA/CISA National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (CAE-CD) designation.¹

Build a strong technical foundation and develop adaptability, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills that can help you thrive in today’s AI-influenced cyber security field.