More than 100 technology, cybersecurity and other major organisations have backed a joint call for governments and businesses to strengthen cyber defences as increasingly capable AI models make sophisticated attacks easier to conduct.
Signatories include OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, IBM and others. The group argues that the same AI capabilities creating new offensive risks can also help defenders identify vulnerabilities, test systems and fix weaknesses faster.
Key facts
- More than 100 organisations have signed the cyber-defence initiative.
- The group expects AI-enabled attacks to become more widespread and capable.
- Organisations are being urged to make cyber defence an immediate leadership priority.
- The initiative calls for wider access to AI-powered defensive capabilities.
- Critical infrastructure, including hospitals and utilities, is a particular focus.
- AI developers are being asked to fund, train and support under-resourced defenders.
Our take
The useful message here is that organisations should not respond to AI-enabled cyber risk simply by restricting AI. Defensive teams can use the same technology to identify vulnerabilities, analyse threats, test controls and accelerate remediation.
For New Zealand organisations, this reinforces the need to bring AI into existing cyber resilience and incident response programmes. AI risk and cyber risk are increasingly becoming part of the same conversation, particularly around identity, software vulnerabilities, agentic systems and third-party access.
Sources
KiwiGen.AI 