It’s hardly news that artificial intelligence has amazing potential to boost organizations’ productivity and workflows. AI improves demand forecasting, enables predictive maintenance for organizations with expensive (and expensive-to-maintain) capital equipment, and can even automate procurement processes.
That’s music to schedulers’, buyers’ and hiring managers’ ears.
AI has a lesser-discussed superpower, too — one that’s all but certain to change the workplace (and workforce) for the better in the decade to come. Increasingly, artificially intelligent systems and processes lie at the core of the tools that organizations rely on to stay safe and secure.
Just how artificial intelligence is poised to strengthen physical, network and personnel security is the exciting part. From flexible access controls and responsive network security to AI-enabled cybersecurity tools that exceed their human handlers’ capabilities to identify and respond to threats, the future seems truly limitless.
Need proof? Here’s how AI can and will make organizations, workplaces and personnel safer and more secure in the near future:
AI Enables Flexible Access Controls and Network Security
AI-powered tools empower organizations to gatekeep on their terms. And some merge the near-limitless capabilities of artificially intelligent networking with the subscription model that allows users some flexibility.
Small business WiFi Solution Plume WorkPass, for example, provides all members the same set of core capabilities: reliable and adaptive WiFi for dispersed workforces, enterprise-grade AI security, cloud-based service upgrades with no manual patches required, flexible control over guest networks and devices, and productivity and engagement tools to effectively manage staff from anywhere.
Individually, these tools may not seem that revolutionary. However, if they are knitted together by self-updating artificial intelligence, it can create a powerful package for organizations that are tired of outdated approaches to access control and network security.
AI Workforce Management Tools Enforce the Principle of Least Permissions
There is a directive at the meeting point of AI-enabled workforce management and security functions that keeps every security officer up at night: enforce the principle of least permissions (or least privilege, depending on who’s talking) at all costs. Artificially intelligent personnel tools make it easier to customize access permissions and wall off sensitive applications or data buckets without involving the IT ticketing bureaucracy.
AI Cybersecurity Tools Can Spot In-Progress Threats Faster Than Humans
Humans have excellent pattern recognition skills. This is a critical attribute for human cybersecurity professionals whose job is to monitor networks for signs of unauthorized or suspicious activity.
Unfortunately, humans’ processing speed and bandwidth are limited in comparison to machines. That’s where AI security tools come in. With pattern recognition capabilities every bit as good as (if not better than) human professionals’ and processing power many times greater, these security tools can help level the playing field for organizations seeking to spot and deter in-progress threats.
Some tools go a step farther, extracting and analyzing data from potentially malicious files themselves (including zero-day malware) before they execute for the first time. That’s the idea behind the Sophos Intercept X anti-malware tool, and it’s likely to be a common feature of AI security tools in the future.
AI Cybersecurity Tools Can Review Historical Records for Signs of Exploits or Unauthorized Activity
AI cybersecurity tools can be backward-looking as well. Using behavioral detection algorithms — again, pattern recognition — these “historical” tools crunch logs, metadata, and other bits of usage data to determine if, when, and by what or whom suspicious activity occurred. After uncovering such activity, the tool either alerts IT security process owners to the presence of unauthorized files or activity or neutralizes the threat itself.
AI Network Security Reduces IT Teams’ Workloads While Preserving the Option of Manual Response
Precisely because they’re so good at recognizing and neutralizing threats, many AI cybersecurity tools work in the background with minimal oversight or input from human supervisors. For example, the Darktrace Antigena tool is specifically designed to detect and neutralize would-be threats within systems and networks, much as human immune systems detect and neutralize foreign pathogens in the bloodstream.
This significantly reduces IT teams day-to-day workloads, allowing organizations to make smart, cost-effective hiring and personnel decisions. Owners of these tools still preserve the option of manual response if and when a threat is detected, or a benign file is falsely identified as one.
AI-Powered Track-and-Trace Tools Can Keep Workforces Healthy (When Used Properly)
As Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic notes in this MIT Sloan Management Review piece, the coronavirus pandemic normalized previously unimaginable invasions of personal privacy in the name of keeping people safe from infection.
It remains to be seen whether specific interventions, such as temperature checks in high-traffic public places and mask requirements in healthcare settings, outlive the pandemic. It’s already clear that the public’s tolerance for such interventions has increased as the pandemic has progressed. Most people are more willing to accept reasonable invasions of privacy and convenience to protect their safety and the safety of those around them.
One of the most controversial invasions of privacy is the AI-powered track-and-trace app. Some countries used track-and-trace apps with great success early in the pandemic to identify, notify and isolate people with suspected exposures to known coronavirus cases. In a post-pandemic world, private and public organizations may choose to deploy similar apps for a broader set of uses.
Investing in AI Cybersecurity Apps — Why You Shouldn’t Wait
Like electric vehicles and grid-scale solar generation, AI-enabled safety and cybersecurity applications are coming whether we want them or not. Forward-thinking organizations are investing right now in the tools of the future — tools that are all but assured to give them a competitive edge in an increasingly automated world.
And if you’re still on the fence about investing in the future, the hour is later than you think. If you don’t notice it this year, you’ll notice it three or five years down the road. And by then, it might be too late to change course. Make the leap today before you’re left wishing you had tomorrow.
Editor’s note: For more artificial intelligence resources, learn about ISACA’s new Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals Certificate.