2026 Cybersecurity Predictions: Insider Risk, AI Security, and the Future of Work

If 2025 was the year generative AI (GenAI) went mainstream, 2026 will be the year its consequences become unavoidable. AI is no longer a side experiment or a productivity curiosity. It is embedded in workflows, decision-making, and national security missions. At the same time, threat actors are adapting just as quickly, weaponizing AI and exploiting trust gaps in ways that strain legacy security models. 

Across DTEX, leaders from strategy, HR, public sector, customer success, investigations, IT, and more are seeing the same pattern from different angles: the boundary between people and technology is dissolving. Insider risk is no longer confined to malicious employees. It now includes unmanaged AI use, machine identities, agentic systems, and coordinated nation-state infiltration. 

Here are DTEX’s predictions for 2026, grounded in what we’ve seen across customers, investigations, and global environments. 

Digital employees arrive: AI agents become insiders

– Marshall Heilman, CEO

In 2026, AI agents won’t just assist work — they’ll become part of the workforce in a way security programs can’t ignore.

“We are already seeing AI agents taking on some job aspects of their human employee counterparts.”

What changes next year is speed and formality: “In 2026 we will see an acceleration of this trend.”

As more work shifts from people to agents, organizations will be forced to define what those agents are allowed to do, what they’re accountable for, and what access they require. That’s why the next inflection point is classification.

“Not only will we continue to see more aspects of human work transitioned to AI agents, but we will also see more organizations move to classify AI agents as digital employees.”

This is more than semantics. It’s how enterprises assign permissions, oversight, and duty-of-care. “The digital employee classification indicates access, responsibilities, and expectations.”

And where access goes, attackers follow. “Attackers will focus on extracting information from digital employees.” 

AI’s inevitable ubiquity 

– Jay Vlavianos, Director of IT and Technical Operations 

AI adoption isn’t optional and attempts to ban it will fail. 

“My prediction for 2026 is that the information revolution is going to continue exponentially. What services like search and YouTube did to democratize information, AI is going to continue at an exponential rate. This is going to happen regardless of whether companies disallow or reject these types of tools.” 

Shadow AI now dwarfs traditional shadow IT, driven by user expectation and product design. 

“There’s been a sharp uptick in shadow AI systems that are being used by employees. Folks are having AI inserted into their lives in almost every aspect… and they’re going to expect that these tools are going to be available at pretty much anywhere they go.” 

“People are seeing these as necessary tools in their arsenal, and if companies don’t adopt it as part of their corporate arsenal of tooling, they risk becoming irrelevant at best or having their information out there at worst.” 

The AI narrative shifts from risk to value

– Jessica Ray, Chief Marketing Officer

In 2026, the narrative around GenAI will shift from fear to advantage. 

“In 2026, organizations will increasingly realize that GenAI is not just a risk to manage, but a powerful driver of productivity and new value when governed well.”

The differentiator won’t be who adopted AI first, but who built the operating model to use it responsibly — across security, legal, HR, and the business. 

“The encouraging reality is that the blueprint already exists. Insider risk management programs have shown what it looks like to bring security, legal, HR, and the business together around how people actually work.”

As AI becomes a true collaborator, leaders will apply those same principles to agentic systems and move faster without guessing. 

“As AI becomes a true collaborator in the workforce, organizations that invest in the right resources, tools, and cross-departmental cooperation will be able to move faster with confidence.”

And for teams willing to act now, the upside is real: “There is still time to get this right, and the organizations that do will turn trust, transparency, and behavioral insight into a lasting advantage.”

GenAI moves from experimentation to execution 

– Jennifer Moll, Chief Strategy Officer 

In 2026, the conversation about GenAI shifts from “Should we use it?” to “How do we operationalize it safely, everywhere?” After a year of explosive adoption, organizations will be expected to deliver clear answers on how GenAI supports each business unit without exposing sensitive data, IP, or customer trust. 

“In 2026, I expect we will see more robust answers to the question, how organizations can use GenAI in each of their business units to maximize efficiency and productivity while keeping their most important assets safe and secure. The teams that answer that question are going to walk a very tight rope between security, privacy and speed, but those teams will also be seen as business enablers.” 

 This pressure will accelerate another shift: consolidation. 

“On the cyber vendor ecosystem, I think we will see another drive towards platformization and vendor consolidation but this time with the guise of meeting the speed of the moment that’s required not just for GenAI but for agentic AI.” 

Point solutions can’t keep up with machine-speed decisions. Platforms that connect behavior, identity, and data will increasingly replace fragmented toolsets. 

Nation-state insider threats evolve 

– Michael Barnhart, Principal i³ Insider Risk Investigator 

In 2026, nation-state insider threats won’t disappear. They’ll adapt. Nowhere is this clearer than with North Korea. 

“In 2026, there will be a large number of people that come out saying, ‘Hey, whatever happened to the IT workers, we don’t see them anymore?’ And a lot of that has to do with the fact that a lot of the IT workers are watching the news, and they’re trying to adapt as we adapt.” 

The reality is structural evolution. DPRK-linked actors are moving up the chain, outsourcing execution while retaining control, blending into management and subcontracting layers. 

At the same time, DTEX expects continued discovery, not just of IT workers, but broader fraudulent employee activity.

“Thankfully with our platform, we’re going to be able to catch not only IT workers, but fraudulent employees too. Just because they’ve moved up the chain doesn’t mean they lose the visibility that we have on them.”

Beyond DPRK, pressure points are growing globally. Disgruntled insiders, ideological recruitment, and paid access models are expanding. 

“Across the board, Iran is going to continue being Iran, and there’ll be a major focus on Russia and China.”

People on the inside are being paid “$25,000 to $50,000 to go in and operate ransomware or take pictures of different systems on the inside.”

“These are all the things we’re going to be watching out for and something that we’re prepped for and we’re going to hit the ground running on it.”

Privacy complexity and the shadow AI surge 

– Remon Verkerk, Senior Insider Risk Analyst, EMEA 

By 2026, privacy compliance won’t just be hard — it will be fragmented, overlapping, and seemingly impossible to manage. 

“As of January 2025, around 82% of the world’s population was already governed by national privacy law and we’re expecting to see organizations continue to struggle to comply these laws.” 

From GDPR to the EU AI Act, Data Act, and beyond, organizations are navigating digital entropy at scale. Strong privacy governance becomes the only viable strategy.

“My advice would be for organizations that are working on managing this is to prioritize transparency above anything else… Knowing where your data is, is key.” 

Layered on top is the fastest-growing threat: shadow AI. 

“Preventing access to well-known AI systems isn’t enough… many applications (managed or unmanaged) make use of proprietary or third-party AI models that interact with your data, leading to loss or leakage of IP but also personal data or PII.” 

The consequences of shadow AI can be devastating, leading to crown jewel exposure to lack of compliance and subsequent reputational damage.  

“To solve this problem, it starts with educating your users… Next, make sure that you’re in control by monitoring risky user behavior and once again check your data flow.” 

HR becomes central to insider risk 

– Puja Singhal, VP Human Resources 

As intelligent agents enter the workforce, insider risk stops being “just a security problem.” In 2026, HR leaders will play a central role in managing how people and AI collaborate, and where that collaboration introduces risk. 

“As we approach 2026, I’m energized by the opportunity to redefine the workforce, bringing together people and intelligent agents as true collaborations. This evolution presents new security challenges that demand our attention.” 

The response won’t be more policy alone. It will be cultural change, one that is “security-first in which concerns are raised early, and every voice is valued in protecting organizations’ future.” 

Expect to see HR, legal, IT, and security operating as one. 

“In 2026, we’ll see HR, security and IT teams come together to create joint taskforces, run cross functional tabletop exercises, and embed security awareness training within onboarding to transform security from a technical mandate to a cultural norm.” 

Organizations that treat insider risk as a human challenge (not just a technical one) will be better positioned to detect issues early. 

What customers are demanding in 2026 

– Drew Jones, VP Customer Success 

From customer conversations, two priorities dominate 2026: AI security and infiltration resilience. 

“From a customer perspective it’s (AI security) very prevalent in our conversations… Not only from a shadow AI perspective but moving towards AI agents, who creates them, and what those agents are doing.” 

Customers are also scrutinizing their own tools, expecting AI to elevate analysts, reduce noise, and focus attention where it matters most. 

At the same time, nation-state infiltration is evolving and has pushed CISOs to harden hiring, partner vetting, and contractor oversight. 

“Given that it’s not just lone wolfs anymore – there’s inside and outside actors working together – and their techniques and behaviors are changing, our understanding of that needs to continue.” 

“The CISOs are really focused on shoring up their internal processes with HR, with background checks, interviews and hiring processes but also how partners and contractors are doing that so they can ensure they have same level of focus and rigor.” 

Insider risk redefined in the public sector 

– Michael Rider, Senior Solutions Engineer, Public Sector 

Federal agencies face a fundamental shift in what “insider” even means. In 2026, AI systems themselves become insiders, executing sensitive tasks at machine speed. 

“Agentic systems are now performing sensitive tasks, and NIST and OMB warn that misconfigured or manipulated AI can cause harm at machine speed. Monitoring AI behavior becomes mission critical.” 

Deepfakes and AI-driven impersonation are collapsing trust in communications, causing “authenticity collapses”. 

“Deepfake impersonation and AI-driven social engineering are rising fast, and CISA and the FBI are already sounding the alarm. Agencies will have to rethink what ‘trusted communication’ means.” 

At the same time, non-human identities explode in scale.  

“Service accounts, bots, and automations now outnumber humans 20 to one, and GAO continues to flag them as poorly governed and rarely audited.” 

Yet the core risk hasn’t changed. 

“Across all of this, human behavior still drives most insider incidents — fatigue, distraction, privilege creep, and mission pressure remain the core failure points.” 

“In 2026, insider risk is no longer just about malicious insiders. It’s about securing the humans, the AI, and the machine identities that run the federal mission.”  

The bottom line 

In 2026, insider risk will manifest as a convergence of people, AI, identity, data, and trust. Organizations that connect behavioral intelligence, transparency, and cross-functional ownership will define the next generation of security maturity. 

Request a demo to learn how DTEX can support your protective security and resilience against human, data and AI risks in 2026 and beyond.