AI Risks Overtake Data Theft as the #1 Driver for Security Investments

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The race to adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) has triggered an unprecedented data security crisis, with AI risks officially eclipsing traditional data theft as the primary driver for corporate security investments. To uncover how organizations are adapting to these emerging risks, Skyhigh Security, the leader in data-centric Security Service Edge (SSE), conducted new research in partnership with Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT research and consulting firm, and produced a report titled "Leveraging DSPM and Artificial Intelligence to Solve Data Security Challenges."

Driven by the rapid deployment of AI and agentic systems, enterprise data environments are expanding faster than legacy security tools can track. To understand how organizations are navigating this friction, EMA surveyed 225 IT, security, and data governance leaders across North American enterprises to analyze emerging priorities and the baseline capabilities required for modern data security.

Among the study's most significant findings, securing AI data flows emerged as the top driver for DSPM investments, cited by nearly two thirds (64.4%) of respondents. This surpassed the next most common response, exfiltration prevention (56%), by nearly ten percent, marking the first time an AI-specific outcome has become the leading purchase driver within the category.

“This data should serve as a massive wake-up call for the industry: visibility alone is a losing strategy," said Sanjay Castelino, president at Skyhigh Security. "Discovering where your data lives is just the starting point. If you can’t enforce policies and apply inline protection in real time as data moves across users, cloud services, and AI applications, you aren’t actually securing anything. Skyhigh Security is bridging that gap by turning DSPM insights into active, immediate enforcement.”

The research suggests these customer challenges are becoming universal across the enterprise, with organizations placing greater emphasis on visibility, governance, and real-time protection as AI adoption grows.

“The era of treating data security as a compliance exercise is over," said Christopher Steffan, VP of Research at EMA. "Our research shows that discovering where sensitive data resides, understanding how it is being used, and enforcing automated remediation and inline protection have become business imperatives as enterprises race to deploy AI and agentic systems. Organizations that fail to establish a strong datasecurity foundation before scaling AI initiatives risk creating challenges that will be far more difficult to address down the road.”

The report also exposes a widening gap between passive compliance auditing and the aggressive, real-time controls required to survive the AI boom. Additional takeaways include:

• Storage Silos Create Gridlock: 58.2% of respondents identify encryption key ownership and localized control as top concerns when making storage architecture decisions—the single highest-rated constraint in the research.
• Visibility is in Demand: 57.8% of respondents report that AI data visibility across training datasets and model inputs and outputs is the most important capability of their DSPM solution.
• Auditing is Broken: Nearly half of tech leaders (46.7%) declare auditing alone is not enough and that real-time residency enforcement is required.
• Inconsistent Policies Create Complexity: 45.3% of respondents cited consistent security policies across all cloud environments as a concern, noting that disparate controls create compounding sovereignty complexity.
• Shadow Data Persists: 40.9% of respondents claim AI training workflows are the leading source of shadow data.
  
  
  

The research highlights a clear shift in priorities as AI adoption scales: Organizations are focusing on capabilities that deliver deep visibility into data ecosystems and translate that visibility into protection.

Addressing the New Data Frontier

Skyhigh Security’s converged Security Service Edge (SSE) portfolio is uniquely positioned to solve these complex market challenges by uniting active DSPM with real-time inline enforcement, enabling users to:

• Stop AI Data Leaks Inline: Meeting the critical visibility demands of over half of respondents, Skyhigh Security provides enterprise-grade discovery and real-time inline controls to automatically monitor model inputs and outputs, mitigate prompt injection risks, and safeguard sensitive information.
• Defeat Sovereignty Complexity: To address the top architectural constraint identified in the report, Skyhigh enables organizations to maintain strict encryption key ownership and localized data residency without sacrificing edge performance.
• Unify Policy Enforcement Across Hybrid Environments: Skyhigh eliminates compounding sovereignty complexity by delivering a single, data-first policy engine that standardizes data protection across distributed cloud, web, SaaS, and on-premises footprints.
  
  

Download the full report, "Leveraging DSPM and Artificial Intelligence to Solve Data Security Challenges" for more information.

About Skyhigh Security
Skyhigh Security is dedicated to securing the world’s data with cloud-native, data-aware security solutions that empower organizations to collaborate freely without compromising on security. Its market-leading Security Service Edge (SSE) portfolio focuses on protecting data use, enabling innovation and compliance across hybrid environments. For more information, visit https://www.skyhighsecurity.com/.

About Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)
Founded in 1996, EMA is a leading IT research and consulting firm dedicated to delivering actionable insights across the evolving technology landscape. Through independent research, market analysis, and vendor evaluations, we empower organizations to make well-informed technology decisions. Our team of analysts combines practical experience with a deep understanding of industry best practices and emerging vendor solutions to help clients achieve their strategic objectives. Learn more about EMA research, analysis, and consulting services at https://www.enterprisemanagement.com and follow them on X and LinkedIn.

Media Contacts:
Lindsay Yanko, Senior Communications Manager | Skyhigh Security
[email protected]

Raleigh Gould | Enterprise Management Associates
[email protected]

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]