Gulf News Cyber Forum 2025: Cybersecurity experts highlight AI's role and risks

 Artificial intelligence is transforming cybersecurity at remarkable speed but while AI can strengthen defenses, leaders warn that confidence, ethics, and human oversight must evolve just as quickly. This was the clear takeaway from a high-powered panel discussion at the Gulf News Cyber Forum 2025, which convened prominent cybersecurity experts on Tuesday at the Taj Exotica Resort and Spa, Palm Jumeirah.

Moderated by Aditya Kaushik, CIO, ZMI Holdings, the session explored how AI is being deployed across security operations to detect and respond to threats at scale while raising new challenges in governance, transparency, and organisational trust.

Kaushik noted that modern enterprises are already operating in an AI-driven threat landscape. With detection tools, SOC platforms, and offensive cyber techniques all using AI, “speed and safety, autonomy and accountability” now sit at the heart of cybersecurity strategy.

For Andrew Holliday, Group Chief Information Security Officer at Petrofac, AI is finally allowing defenders to stand toe-to-toe with increasingly well-equipped attackers. Historically, security teams were always behind, he observed. But advanced analytics and automation can change that dynamic if used wisely. “If you use AI to prevent against adversarial AI, you can potentially neutralize that threat,” he said, adding that automation “buys you time, and time is currency in cybersecurity.”

AI agents now perform first-response alert triage, freeing analysts from repetitive tasks and enabling faster incident resolution. But Lou Bouchet, Head of Cybersecurity, JETEX, cautioned that maturity and vigilance are non-negotiable. “In future, we may see autonomous red-teaming - AI fighting our blue teams without warning. Risks will grow, but human oversight will still be critical,” he said.

Rajesh Kumar, CTO of Mindfire Technologies, noted that while AI-based tools are not new to cybersecurity, scaling them responsibly is the real challenge. Governance, he stressed, must be baked into every deployment. “We need robust governance so adoption happens in a risk-free manner,” he said, urging continuous monitoring to ensure AI strengthens rather than weakens an organization’s defense.

For Pradeep Krishnan Nair, VP IT Security at Finesse, success lies in striking the right balance between technological speed and human judgment. “Let the machines do the heavy lifting, but humans do the thinking,” he said, pointing out that automation is invaluable until a high-impact business risk requires a human decision-maker to intervene.

Across the discussion, one theme stood out: cybersecurity is no longer about the smartest tools alone. Trust, transparency, training, and governance must advance hand-in-hand with technology.