Global market for securing AI likely to reach $4.8 billion in 2027

NEW DELHI — The global market for securing AI is projected to reach almost $4.8 billion in 2027, a 68.7 per cent increase over 2026, according to a Gartner report on Wednesday.

By 2028, the market is forecast to reach almost $7.7 billion.

"This surge is driven by the urgent need for enterprises to secure AI systems, address emerging vulnerabilities and strengthen defenses against sophisticated cyberthreats,” said Shailendra Upadhyay, senior principal analyst at Gartner.

This is compounded by growing vulnerabilities and supply chain attacks involving third-party and open-source software in AI projects. Without adequate security and visibility controls, enterprise AI initiatives face a high risk of failure, he mentioned.

Over half of successful cyberattacks on AI agents are expected to exploit access control weaknesses and prompt injections by 2029, the report said.

AI application security will remain the largest spending category in 2027, forecast to reach almost $851 million, followed by AI usage control at $749 million.

However, AI usage control will experience the largest growth of 73 per cent, followed by the AI gateway at 70.9 per cent.

“As defences like AI runtime protection and dedicated gateways become more reliable, organisations will gain confidence in these tools, accelerating adoption,” said Upadhyay.

At the same time, as businesses expand their AI initiatives, the need for specialised AI security solutions will further grow, especially as autonomous AI introduces new vulnerabilities beyond the reach of traditional monitoring, he noted.

According to the report, there is a growing need for organisations to identify, monitor and protect AI models from these unique threats, which is driving the adoption of advanced AI security solutions.

To build a strong defence, businesses need to combine their existing security systems with specialised AI security tools.