Gartner Identifies Top Five Actions for CISOs to Take by End of 2026
Gartner, Wednesday, September 30th, 2026
Gartner urges CISOs to lead on AI safety, treat frontier AI as insider risk, replace recognition-based identity and fund preemptive security.
Gartner outlines priority actions for security leaders in Q4 2026 as AI-augmented attacks, deepfakes and quantum risks increase uncertainty, saying CISOs should establish their authority on AI safety with a focus on how models interact with harnesses and infrastructure.
Gartner also recommends treating frontier AI deployments as insider risks and governing agents by action privileges, since 54% of organizations have no defined way to limit agent access.
Other recommendations are to stop relying on recognition alone to authorize decisions because of deepfakes, and to budget for preemptive capabilities as AI speeds up vulnerability discovery.