Watch on demand their fireside chat forecasting 2026, the year AI disrupts cybersecurity
By Jeff Copeland
In a recent fireside chat between John Chambers and Saket Modi, the message to cybersecurity leaders was direct: 2026 will be defined by the speed and scale of AI adoption—and the race will definitely belong to the swift.
Watch the fireside chat now:
AI’s Next Inflection Point: Predictions Cyber Risk Leaders Can’t Ignore
>>John Chambers, Chairman Emeritus, Cisco, and CEO, JC2 Ventures
>>Saket Modi, Co-Founder and CEO at SAFE
Chambers anchored the conversation around his LinkedIn essay, Buckle Up: My Top 10 Predictions for 2026. His stance is optimistic but clear-eyed. AI will accelerate productivity, reshape how companies operate, and transform cybersecurity—but it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
For CISOs mapping strategy for the year ahead, the takeaway is unambiguous: AI is no longer just another technology trend to monitor. It is the operating environment for cybersecurity going forward.
1. John Chambers Makes the Bullish Case for AI
Chambers has been betting heavily on AI for years—and by his own account, the results have blown past expectations.
“I bet on AI four years ago. And frankly the market impact and the economic impact have overachieved them all.”
His thesis: AI will drive economic growth, productivity, and profitability at a pace that most forecasts still dramatically underestimate. In his view, 2025 was the year AI went mainstream. 2026 is the year it goes universal.
“Every employee across all industries will be using AI regularly. The productivity numbers are probably 10% [increase] within reach.”
Chambers drew a direct parallel to the early internet era—a transition that spawned entire new technology sectors, cybersecurity chief among them. “If you’re an expert on AI and cybersecurity, that’s what I recommend young people go into.”
2. Speed Is the X-Factor
The internet reshaped industries over roughly a decade. Chambers argues AI will do it in a fraction of that time.
“The last time we saw this type of transition was with the internet. But this is probably five times the speed.”
That compression changes the calculus for everyone—especially security leaders. Things that took five years will take one. The organizations that treat AI transformation as a slow burn will get left behind.
Chambers also offered a word of warning: volatility is part of the deal. “Fasten your seatbelt. There will be tremendous ups and downs… and there will be some train wrecks.”
3. Cybersecurity Stands to Be a Winner
Amid all the disruption, Chambers sees cybersecurity as one of the biggest long-term beneficiaries of the AI era.
“Cybersecurity will be five times as important as it was in the internet era.”
As AI proliferates across organizations, attack surfaces will expand rapidly. Simultaneously, defenders will lean harder on AI to detect threats earlier, automate workflows, and manage increasingly complex environments. “AI combined with cybersecurity will be the way we defend this and do our jobs more effectively.”
For security professionals tracking headcount and investment trends, Chambers was clear: “I can’t think of a more exciting place to be than the intersection of AI and cybersecurity.”
4. The Productivity Gains Are Already Real
Both Chambers and Modi made clear that AI’s impact isn’t theoretical—it’s already showing up in operational numbers.
Modi shared hard data from SAFE’s own experience. After deploying AI development tools, engineering output nearly tripled. “An engineer who used to write 5,000 lines of code per week now produces about 12,500. That’s roughly 2.5x productivity gain per engineer.”
The gains extended well beyond engineering. Video production that once cost up to $200,000 and took two months now costs under $1,000 and ships every two weeks.
Chambers sees identical patterns across his portfolio—and pushed back on the assumption that AI means fewer people. “It doesn’t mean headcount gets reduced. It means we are going to be more effective.”
5. SAFE’s Approach: Agentic AI and Cyber Risk Quantification
For SAFE, the AI shift isn’t only about internal efficiency—it’s fundamentally changing how the company delivers cybersecurity outcomes to customers.
Modi described SAFE’s multi-year effort to re-architect its platform for what he calls the “agentic world.” The core inversion: traditional SaaS forced organizations to adapt to the software. With AI SaaS, the software adapts to your process.
The results are concrete. Instacart cut vendor risk assessment time from 100 hours to 70 hours—across hundreds of vendors simultaneously. T-Mobile reduced cyber risk reporting time by 75 percent.
But Modi pushed beyond efficiency as the end goal. The real prize is giving business leaders quantified visibility into cyber risk. “We think of the discipline of cyber risk quantification more like strategic risk management.”
That reframe matters for how CISOs engage the C-suite. Instead of budget cases built on fear, security leaders can walk into the boardroom with options—and ROI attached to each. “They can go to the CEO and CFO and present three options—$30M, $40M, or $50M—and actually quantify the ROI of each.”
Today, Modi noted, “99% of cybersecurity programs don’t have that visibility.” That gap is both the problem—and the opportunity.
Buckle Up for 2026
The fireside chat closed emphasizing that AI disruption is not coming. It’s here. The organizations that will win are those treating it as a fundamental strategic transformation—not a feature upgrade. As Chambers said,
“If you haven’t got a new evolution in your strategy every quarter, you’re in trouble.”
For CISOs, the stakes couldn’t be clearer. AI will reshape how organizations operate, how attackers think, and how defenders respond. Cybersecurity sits at the center of that transformation—not as a supporting function, but as a defining one.
“Change makes us uncomfortable. But we have to embrace it. If we’re not disrupting ourselves, somebody else will,” Chambers said.
Watch the fireside chat now:
AI’s Next Inflection Point: Predictions Cyber Risk Leaders Can’t Ignore
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