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CISO AI Leverage Report

Publisher: Open Future Forum Research type: Executive benchmark report (operator-research) Audience: CISOs and security leaders Edition: Edition 1 Publication date: July 2026 Canonical source: https://openfutureforum.com/research/ciso-ai-leverage-report

Overview

The CISO AI Leverage Report reads the double position security leaders hold: AI is simultaneously the newest risk the security function must govern and one of the clearest ways to scale a stretched security team. Its flagship metric, the CISO AI Leverage Index, measures the share of security leaders who say AI now lets the security function cover more surface without growing headcount. The report frames this against an external backdrop of fast-growing agentic AI security market forecasts alongside historically slow security budget growth.

Methodology & Sample

First-party figures come from Open Future Forum's CISO Roundtable series (an invitation-screened dinner format) and broader July 2026 event-application records across twelve events. Application/composition figures are reported as rounded floors of distinct applicants. Opinion figures come from an instrument fielded to security-lane applicants, with a base of 26 respondents (10 of whom self-identified as CISOs/heads of security) — below the program's normal 40-response floor, so these are explicitly labeled directional/early reads with bases shown on each figure.

Key Findings

  • The agentic AI security market is forecast to grow from about $1.65 billion in 2026 to $13.52 billion by 2032 (a 42% compound annual rate, per MarketsandMarkets), while overall security budget growth slowed to just 4% in 2025 — the lowest rate in five years (IANS Research and Artico Search).
  • In an early read (base of 26), 62% of security-lane respondents named securing AI agents and their access as the biggest AI security problem they face, ahead of data leaking into AI models (31%) and shadow AI (23%).
  • 69% of the same group reported having no dedicated budget line for AI security; among the 10 self-identified security leaders specifically, 9 of 10 had no dedicated line, funding it case-by-case or out of the existing security budget instead.
  • The security-leader subgroup prioritized differently than the wider room: 6 of 10 security leaders named data leaking into AI models as their top concern (versus agent access for the broader group), suggesting operators closest to the controls worry most about model data exposure.
  • Among founders selling AI products, none of 92 surveyed named the CISO or security function as their buyer — the CIO/CTO (43%) and business unit (38%) were named instead, meaning new AI often enters organizations through channels the security function doesn't control or approve.
  • The CEO was the most-named signer of AI purchases in Open Future Forum's finance-lane data (47%, base of 87), consistent with external findings (BCG) that a majority of CEOs consider themselves the primary AI decision-maker — widening the gap between who approves AI deployment and who has to secure it.
  • The security lane was deliberately the smallest lane in Open Future Forum's July 2026 event pull (70 applicants) by program design (a screened, intimate dinner format), even though the single largest event in that period was an AI-agents-for-fintech-engineering session (245 applicants) — suggesting the deepest AI governance conversations are currently happening outside rooms the CISO runs.

Related OFF Research

Citation

Open Future Forum. The CISO AI Leverage Report, Edition 1. July 2026. https://openfutureforum.com/research/ciso-ai-leverage-report

DOI

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