N-able, Inc., a global cybersecurity company delivering end-to-end business resilience, released “The AI Fog Report: When the Signal Becomes the Noise,” an independent global research report examining how small and medium-sized enterprises are scaling to drive business continuity during this new era of Frontier AI.
The survey of 595 cybersecurity decision-makers and practitioners across the United States and United Kingdom finds the security industry at an inflection point. As organizations rapidly adopt AI-powered security technologies, increasingly capable Frontier AI models are transforming both cyber defense and attacker capabilities.
The research reveals three critical challenges: AI is amplifying complexity within already complex security environments, security teams are struggling to separate context from noise to identify what matters most, and AI adoption is outpacing organizational trust and governance. Together, these trends are reshaping how organizations manage cyber risk and highlighting the need for greater context, confidence, and control.
"Security teams are entering the AI era from an already difficult operating position," said Brendan Griffin, Director of Threat Research at N-able. "The promise of AI has never been greater, but simply adding more AI doesn't automatically produce better security outcomes. Organizations need AI that reduces operational complexity, delivers meaningful context, and helps defenders make confident decisions faster."
AI is amplifying complexity inside already complex security environments
86.1 per cent of respondents report security alert volumes increased over the past 12 months, including 24.2 per cent who say alert volume increased by more than 50 per cent.
Among organizations experiencing increased alert volume, respondents most often attribute growth to adding more detection tools (40.2 per cent), followed by AI enabling attackers to launch attacks faster (26.2 per cent), while 20.1 per cent say multiple factors are contributing simultaneously.
84.5 per cent have encountered a confirmed or suspected AI-assisted attack during the past year, illustrating how AI is accelerating the pace and scale of modern threats.
54.8 per cent say alert noise interferes with incident response daily or several times each week, while only 8.7 per cent report that alert noise rarely or never affects operations.
The findings suggest organizations are reaching a point of diminishing returns from layering AI on their existing stacks. As adoption continues to grow, reducing operational friction and helping defenders focus on the decisions that matter most should be the core focus of AI security solutions.
