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Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the cyber threat landscape, with AI-driven attacks rising 56% over the past year and costing affected businesses an average of $6.04 million per breach, according to IBM’s 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report.
The report found that more than one in four organisations that experienced a malicious cyberattack reported that artificial intelligence was involved, highlighting the growing role of AI in both the scale and sophistication of cybercrime.
The average cost of an AI-driven breach was about $1 million higher than breaches that did not involve AI. IBM put the average cost of malicious attacks without AI involvement at $5.03 million, compared with $6.04 million for AI-driven incidents.
AI Gives Cybercriminals Greater Speed and Scale
IBM said attackers are increasingly deploying AI to automate activities, identify weaknesses and conduct attacks at a scale that would be difficult to achieve through traditional methods.
The technology is also reducing the time, expertise and cost required to launch sophisticated attacks, increasing pressure on organisations to strengthen their security systems.
Deepfake impersonation was the most common AI-driven attack identified in the report, accounting for 45% of such incidents.
AI-generated malware represented 19%, while AI-generated phishing and other AI-produced communications accounted for 17%.
The findings indicate that generative AI is making social-engineering attacks increasingly convincing, giving criminals new ways to manipulate victims.
Businesses Are Also Becoming Targets of AI Attacks
The threat is not limited to criminals using AI as an attack tool.
IBM found that organisations are increasingly experiencing attacks against their own AI models and applications.
About 21% of organisations surveyed reported a security incident involving an AI model or application, up from 13% the previous year.
Among the most expensive incidents were model inversion attacks, which averaged $6.07 million, and prompt injection attacks, with an average cost of $5.89 million.
Model inversion involves attempts to extract sensitive information from an AI model, while prompt injection involves manipulating an AI system through malicious instructions.
As companies integrate AI into corporate applications, databases and business processes, the technology is becoming an increasingly important part of the overall cybersecurity attack surface.
Global Breach Costs Hit Record High
The wider findings of IBM’s report show that cybersecurity costs are rising beyond AI-related incidents.
The global average cost of a data breach reached $4.99 million, representing a 12% increase from the previous year and a new record.
AI-driven breaches therefore carry a significantly higher financial impact than the global average.
IBM also found that organisations making extensive use of AI and automation in their security operations achieved average breach-cost savings of approximately $1.93 million compared with organisations that did not use those technologies extensively.
Africa Faces Growing AI-Enabled Cyber Threat
The development is particularly significant for Africa, where cybercrime is also becoming increasingly technology-driven.
The 2026 INTERPOL African Cyberthreat Assessment Report found that AI was involved in 55% of reported cybercrimes across Africa.
The report also estimated that financial losses associated with cybercrime on the continent more than doubled, rising from $192 million in 2024 to $484 million in 2025, based on survey responses from 36 African member countries.
INTERPOL has warned that cybercrime operations are increasingly moving from isolated attacks towards more organised, borderless networks powered by AI tools.
Businesses Under Pressure to Strengthen Defences
The IBM findings underscore the growing gap between the speed at which attackers can deploy AI and the ability of organisations to identify and contain emerging threats.
For businesses, the challenge is now twofold: defending against criminals who use AI to improve their attacks while also securing the AI systems being introduced into corporate operations.
IBM’s findings suggest that organisations that combine AI and automation with broader cybersecurity controls can reduce both the financial impact and duration of cyber incidents.
As businesses continue to integrate AI into their operations, cybersecurity is therefore becoming less about protecting traditional systems alone and increasingly about securing the AI models, applications, data and workflows that are becoming part of the modern digital economy.
