95% of organizations are increasing cybersecurity budgets in 2026, with AI acting as the primary driver of spending, despite being the hardest investment to justify.
BROOMFIELD, Colorado, February 24, 2026 — Exabeam, a global leader in intelligence and automation solutions for security operations centers (SOC), announced the results of its new international report
From Adoption to Accountability: The New Economics of AI in Cybersecurity. Based on a survey of 750 IT and security leaders from organizations with more than 500 employees across 12 countries, the research reveals a critical paradox.
Amid unprecedented growth in cybersecurity budgets, security leaders are rapidly advancing AI-driven transformation, yet they lag in measuring effectiveness, justifying investments, and achieving strategic alignment.
According to the study, 95% of organizations are increasing cybersecurity budgets in 2026, with 74% expecting double-digit growth. At the same time, AI occupies three contradictory positions in budget planning: it is the top driver of spending increases (44%), the first investment to be cut under budget constraints (44%), and the hardest category of spending to justify to business stakeholders (32%).
“Security leaders are being mandated to invest in AI, but they haven’t been given a way to prove it works. You can’t measure AI transformation with pre-AI metrics,” said Steve Wilson, Chief AI and Product Officer at Exabeam. “The issue isn’t that security teams lack data — they’re drowning in it. The problem is they’re tracking the wrong metrics and speaking a language the board doesn’t understand. Those are the budgets that get cut first. And the window to fix this is closing fast.”
Unprecedented Budget Growth Driven by AI Transformation
Cybersecurity investment trends in 2026 show a significant shift: AI and automation are the primary drivers of budget expansion (44%), outpacing cloud infrastructure growth (33%) and broader enterprise AI adoption (32%). The fact that this surge in spending is directed primarily toward technology rather than traditional headcount expansion highlights how fundamentally the AI era is reshaping security operations.
The Value Gap Creates Vulnerability
While 87% of security leaders are confident that their investments deliver business value, 30% cite the biggest challenge in defending those budgets as the board’s lack of understanding of the link between cybersecurity investment and business resilience. This gap reveals a critical vulnerability: 63% of security leaders report using quantifiable ROI, and 59% use outcome-based metrics, yet boards and executives still fail to connect security investment with business risk.
The issue is not a lack of information but a misalignment between security metrics and the metrics used for business decision-making. Security teams rely on traditional indicators that do not translate into the business impact language required by boards to evaluate investment decisions.
“In AI-assisted environments, traditional metrics like mean time to resolve (MTTR) become almost automatic, so speed alone no longer proves risk reduction,” said Kevin Kirkwood, CISO at Exabeam. “We need new ways to measure security effectiveness that actually demonstrate business impact, because boards don’t fund faster ticket closure — they fund measurable risk reduction and business resilience.
We must show that we’re not just responding faster, but eliminating and improving the conditions that allow incidents to occur in the first place.”
Regional Differences Highlight Diverse AI Adoption Strategies
Regional differences in AI adoption are striking. Saudi Arabia leads with the most aggressive stance, with 75% of respondents reporting that AI is already improving security operations — nearly three times higher than Japan (27%) and the Netherlands (30%). These differences reflect varying organizational priorities. Saudi Arabia’s figures align with broader national digital transformation initiatives, while organizations in Europe and Asia emphasize cautious evaluation and workforce preservation before scaling deployment.
Closing the Justification Gap
The cybersecurity industry is experiencing a rare period of budget abundance, but this also introduces sustainability challenges. Security leaders are aggressively investing in AI transformation while struggling to communicate its business value to boards and CFOs. This dynamic is not sustainable: budget abundance raises expectations, and organizations that cannot demonstrate clear value from AI investments risk losing those budgets when economic conditions shift.
Organizations that succeed will recognize that adoption is only half the challenge. Success requires developing new approaches to measuring AI impact, building outcome-based metrics that directly link security effectiveness to business resilience, and creating executive-level communication that translates technical improvements into business impact.
Methodology
This report is based on research conducted by Sapio Research on behalf of Exabeam in December 2025. The survey included 750 IT and security leaders from organizations with more than 500 employees.
Respondents represented 12 countries across Europe (UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Netherlands), North America (USA, Canada), and the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions (India, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Japan, Australia), covering key industries including technology, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, retail, telecommunications, and the public sector.
Why Buy Exabeam from NWU?
NWU is an official distributor of Exabeam solutions in Ukraine, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia. We help organizations implement advanced security analytics and SOC automation platforms that enable efficient threat detection, faster response times, and improved incident visibility.
When purchasing Exabeam solutions from NWU, you get:
- Guaranteed product authenticity and direct supply from the vendor
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- End-to-end support — from pilot projects to full-scale deployment
- Integration, configuration, and team training services
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Exabeam solutions help organizations in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan enhance SOC efficiency, optimize cybersecurity spending, and transition to a proactive, AI-driven security model.
Contact NWU to receive expert consultation and choose the optimal Exabeam solution for your business.
