NCSC urges cautious collaboration on AI for UK cyber defence

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has said artificial intelligence could become an important part of future cyber defence, but only if organisations adopt it carefully and keep basic security measures in place.

In a recent blog post, the NCSC said AI may help defenders improve threat detection, identify vulnerabilities in networks and software, automate parts of security operations, and speed up incident response. The agency described these areas as promising, while warning that practical adoption will likely be gradual rather than immediate.

According to the NCSC, frontier AI systems can sometimes perform specific security tasks well, but they may also be inconsistent, difficult to test and hard to integrate safely into existing environments. The organisation said this means deployment will require new capabilities, clear oversight and time to mature.

Peter Haigh, the NCSC’s deputy chief technology officer, argued that collaboration across industry, government and academia will be needed to support the use of AI in defensive work. The message aligns with remarks from Security Minister Dan Jarvis, who also highlighted the need to work together on AI-enabled cyber defence at CYBERUK 2026.

Key risks to manage

The NCSC outlined several issues that defenders will need to address before using AI tools more widely:

• approval and risk management for new deployments
• legal, policy and human oversight requirements
• secure-by-default system design and sandboxing
• safe integration with existing tools and workflows
• protection of data, intellectual property and sensitive information
• oversight of suppliers and other parts of the supply chain
• testing to confirm outputs are accurate and useful
• careful handling of AI-driven recommendations and automated responses

The agency said AI may be better at spotting security issues than at carrying out safe corrective action on its own. For that reason, it added, organisations should not see AI as a replacement for good cyber hygiene.

Instead, the NCSC said essential security practices such as patching, secure configuration, access control and monitoring remain the immediate priority, even as work continues on more advanced AI-based defences.