5 AI related risks for 2026 that should be on your radar

The pace of technological and geopolitical change has accelerated beyond the scope of established business playbooks. This isn't a single wave of change, but a perfect storm where the brittleness of our global supply chains, the volatility of our geopolitics, and the exponential power of artificial intelligence are converging. In this new landscape, traditional risk management, designed for a more predictable world, is becoming obsolete.

The most significant threats facing organizations in 2026 are not the obvious, isolated challenges that dominate headlines. Instead, they are the second-order effects emerging from the surprising and often invisible connections between technology, operations, and human behavior. These risks emerge from the strategic blind spots between the data scientists deploying AI agents and the CISOs tasked with securing them; between the board demanding AI-driven growth and the workforce lacking the skills to deliver it securely.

This new class of risk demands a new playbook. Leaders who can look beyond the immediate hype cycle to understand these deeper, systemic vulnerabilities will be positioned not just to survive, but to build a resilient and competitive advantage. The following five risks are not on most corporate radars, but they will define the operational reality of 2026.

Autonomous AI agents are rapidly evolving from mere tools into "digital coworkers." These intelligent systems can reason, act, and make decisions independently, handling everything from triaging security alerts to processing complex financial workflows. As their adoption accelerates, they are creating a new, hyper-connected workforce where machine identities are projected to outnumber human employees by a staggering ratio of 82 to 1, according to research from CyberArk.

This integration introduces a potent new form of "insider threat." Unlike a human employee, an AI agent is always on, never sleeps, and is implicitly trusted with privileged access to critical APIs, data, and systems. If improperly secured, these agents can be compromised or manipulated through novel attack vectors like prompt injection or "tool misuse," turning an organization's most powerful productivity tool into its most dangerous vulnerability. This explosion of machine identities is the primary fuel for the "crisis of authenticity" detailed later, where every unsecured agent becomes a potential entry point for deepfake-driven fraud.

Every AI agent is an identity that must be governed and secured. The more tasks we delegate to them, the more entitlements and credentials they accumulate, making them a prime target for attackers. The permissions granted to an agent ultimately define the potential blast radius of a compromise, capable of executing malicious actions at a speed that defies human intervention.

The assumption of near-perfect reliability in public cloud infrastructure is becoming a strategic liability. The hyperscale cloud providers are in an arms race to build out new, GPU-centric data centers to meet the massive demand for AI workloads. This strategic pivot, however, is diverting investment and attention away from the legacy infrastructure that underpins the majority of enterprise cloud operations.

Forrester has made a bold prediction for 2026: this race to build AI-native infrastructure will trigger at least two major, multi-day cloud outages. As aging systems falter under growing complexity, the "always-on" promise will be broken, exposing the systemic fragility of a hyper-concentrated cloud market. This infrastructural instability creates a fertile ground for the AI-driven identity attacks and insider threats detailed earlier, as security teams are stretched thin managing both legacy and AI-native systems.

This fragility elevates hyperscale cloud providers to the status of "critical third parties," where their operational decisions directly impact the resilience of thousands of businesses, a reality now under intense regulatory scrutiny from frameworks like the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). In response, at least 15% of companies will move toward "private AI atop private clouds" in a deliberate effort to regain control and ensure resilience for their most critical AI investments.

Geopolitical risk is no longer a background concern for multinationals; it has become a core driver of business strategy, operational planning, and corporate value. In response to ongoing global volatility, 60% of business and technology leaders are increasing their cyber risk investment as a direct strategic priority.

The international landscape is now a "multipolar world" defined by transactional diplomacy, where long-standing alliances feel like negotiable deals. This is creating a fragmented and unpredictable global environment, accelerated by the "localization" of regulation. This "localization" of rules directly complicates the governance of AI agents (Risk #1) and the security of multi-cloud environments (Risk #2), creating a compliance minefield where a single AI workflow may be subject to conflicting legal standards across borders.

This pervasive uncertainty is forcing CEOs to adopt a cautious "'pause and prepare' strategy," delaying significant investment decisions. This posture creates a vacuum where investment in critical upskilling (Risk #5) to be covered below and security modernization is often deferred, paradoxically increasing vulnerability at the very moment caution is intended to reduce it.

We are entering a "crisis of authenticity" where the very concept of identity has become the primary battleground for security. Advances in generative AI are creating a new age of deception, epitomized by the threat of the "CEO doppelgänger"; a flawless, real-time AI-generated deepfake capable of issuing commands, authorizing transactions, or manipulating strategy.

This is not a hypothetical, future threat. A high-profile incident has already seen a sophisticated deepfake fraud result in a $25 million corporate loss, demonstrating the vulnerability of even robust financial controls to AI-driven deception. As these tools become more accessible, adversaries are increasingly "logging in" rather than "breaking in," exploiting legitimate accounts by weaponizing AI-generated content. This erosion of trust is not just a technological problem; it is a human one, preying on the very cognitive biases that make the workforce (Risk #5) the primary target for sophisticated social engineering.

The operational bedrock of the enterprise, trust, is fracturing. Leaders can no longer implicitly trust what they see or hear.

In an era defined by AI, the most profound business risk is overlooking the value and vulnerability of human intelligence. As AI handles more technical tasks, uniquely human "soft skills" like creative thinking, leadership, and empathy increase in value exponentially. These are the abilities that machines cannot replicate and that are essential for navigating complexity.

Failing to invest in the workforce comes at a staggering cost. One report predicts a $5.5 trillion loss to the world economy due to the mismatch between available skills and evolving industry needs. This is not a distant problem; two-thirds of businesses have already experienced work delays of up to ten months because their teams lacked the AI literacy to collaborate effectively with data experts.

During economic turbulence, the common reaction is to cut training budgets. This is a critical mistake, as it leaves the primary target of AI-driven social engineering attacks undefended. AI literacy is not just a productivity tool; it is an essential security defense. Ultimately, a workforce that lacks this skill is not just a productivity bottleneck; it is the undefended attack surface through which AI agents are compromised, deepfakes succeed, and geopolitical disinformation campaigns find fertile ground.

The risks of 2026 are not isolated; they are deeply interconnected, feeding into one another in a systemic cycle of technological, operational, and human volatility. A siloed approach to managing any single one of these threats is doomed to fail. Navigating this landscape requires a holistic and proactive response that frames resilience not as a defensive posture, but as a core competitive advantage. The following action plan is the only viable response to these systemic threats.

We hope you find this in-depth treatment useful and wish you happy holidays.