Statistics & Research
AI Security & Risk Statistics 2026
Breach costs, shadow AI, and attack vectors — sourced from IBM, Gartner, and security researchers.
AI agents expand the enterprise attack surface in ways that traditional security tools were not designed to handle. These statistics — drawn from IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report, Gartner research, and security industry analysis — quantify the financial impact of AI-related security failures and the governance gaps that enable them.
AI Breach Impact
$4.44M global average cost of a data breach in 2025, down 9% from $4.88M in 2024 — the first decline in five years.
13% of organisations reported breaches of AI models or applications.
97% of organisations that experienced an AI-related breach lacked proper AI access controls.
16% of all data breaches involved AI, mostly powering phishing campaigns and deepfakes.
Shadow AI
1 in 5 organisations reported a breach due to shadow AI.
$670K additional breach cost for organisations with high levels of shadow AI compared to those with low or no shadow AI.
37% of organisations have policies to manage AI or detect shadow AI.
Defence Effectiveness
80 days reduction in breach lifecycle for organisations using AI security tools extensively.
$1.9M average savings for organisations using extensive AI-powered security versus those without.
241 days mean time to identify and contain a breach — the lowest in nine years.
Attack Trends
35% of all real-world AI security incidents were caused by simple prompts (prompt injection).
72% year-over-year increase in AI-assisted cyberattacks since 2024.
All statistics are sourced from publicly available reports and press releases from the cited organisations. Figures are accurate as of the publication dates noted. Prefactor is not affiliated with any of the cited research firms.
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