UK firms boost AI security use but trust lags behind

N-able has published research showing that UK organisations are increasing their use of AI security tools, often while relaxing internal rules to support adoption. The findings point to a gap between uptake and trust in autonomous AI actions.

The study found that 84% of UK organisations are increasing AI tool use, while 90% are likely to bend AI policies. It also found that large organisations are more than twice as likely as SMEs to fully trust autonomous remediation, at 31% compared with 14.5%.

The report is based on a survey of 595 cybersecurity decision-makers and practitioners in the UK and US. Across the full sample, 81% said they had meaningfully increased adoption of AI-powered security tools over the past year, and a further 16.5% planned to increase adoption over the next 12 months.

That growth comes as many security teams report heavier workloads and greater difficulty deciding which alerts matter. The research found that 86.1% of respondents said security alert volumes had increased over the past 12 months, including 24.2% who said volumes had risen by more than 50%.

Among those reporting higher alert volumes, 40.2% attributed the rise to adding more detection tools. Another 26.2% said AI was helping attackers launch attacks faster, while 20.1% said several factors were driving the increase at the same time.

Trust gap

N-able's data suggests confidence in AI-led action has not kept pace with deployment. Across the full survey, just 24.5% said they fully trust autonomous AI remediation, while 75.5% said they do not fully trust it without human review.

Respondents also set clear conditions for giving AI systems greater control. Before trusting autonomous AI, 62.7% said they require full explainability and 59.8% require built-in human override.

Only 51.9% said they maintain a comprehensive inventory of AI tools operating across their environments. At the same time, 87.1% said they had made at least minor security policy exceptions to enable AI tools.

The findings come as businesses weigh the benefits of wider AI use against governance and oversight concerns. Only 41% said they were very confident that their current security stack could keep pace with AI without significant overhaul.

Noise problem

As AI is added to security operations, many teams appear to be struggling not only with the number of alerts but also with the quality of the information they receive. More than half, 54.8%, said alert noise interferes with incident response daily or several times a week, while only 8.7% said it rarely or never affects operations.

The main sources of weak signal were duplicate alerts from overlapping tools, cited by 50.4% of respondents, and AI-generated alerts that lacked enough context, cited by 48.9%. That suggests the problem lies as much in interpretation as in detection.

When asked what they value most from AI in operations, 56% ranked faster detection-to-containment as the top outcome. On optimisation priorities, 37.8% said broader detection coverage and better signal precision were equally important, 32.6% prioritised broader detection, and 29.6% preferred fewer, higher-confidence alerts.

The research also points to growing concern over how attackers are using the technology. Some 84.5% said they had encountered a confirmed or suspected AI-assisted attack during the past year.

Brendan Griffin, director of threat research at N-able, said: "Security teams are entering the AI era from an already difficult operating position. The promise of AI has never been greater, but simply adding more AI doesn't automatically produce better security outcomes. Organisations need AI that reduces operational complexity, delivers meaningful context, and helps defenders make confident decisions faster."

The report also included external commentary on how some organisations are approaching AI adoption beyond customer-facing functions. Boyd Smith, founder and president of TechKnowledgey, said: "For many non-customer-facing roles, we're embracing AI for its potential to transform how we operate. AI creates the most value when it helps our teams cut through complexity and focus on the threats that matter most, freeing them to focus on people instead of running processes."