Artificial intelligence is expected to dominate discussion as the world’s top cybersecurity experts gather later this month at the RSAC 2026 Conference in San Francisco.

The technology is reshaping both sides of the cyber battlefield. Security teams are increasingly turning to AI to automate defense and analyze massive volumes of threat data, while adversaries are also deploying AI to accelerate attacks, generate sophisticated phishing campaigns and exploit vulnerabilities at machine speed.

“With cyber adversaries increasingly using AI in their attacks, the need to ‘fight AI with AI’ has become a top concern for IT leaders,” said Christophe Bertrand, principal analyst for cyber resiliency, data protection and data management at theCUBE Research. “Recent findings by theCUBE Research shows that when asked which AI/ML use cases for data backup and recovery will have the most positive impact on their organization, the clear winner and most impactful use case is automated backup and recovery. Beyond backup and recovery, I expect this edition of RSAC to showcase many advances in AI-powered automation across the spectrum of cyber-resiliency vendors and technologies.”

TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, will be covering the latest news and announcements at the RSAC 2026 Conference in San Francisco, from March 23-26. Tune in for on-site reporting and exclusive interviews as theCUBE’s analysts talk with experts from Ernst & Young, NetApp, StackHawk, Dell, Capital One and RSAC, among many others. Coverage will explore how enterprise security is being reshaped by identity fragmentation, autonomous threats and AI systems that move faster than traditional controls. (* Disclosure below.)

Focus on data integrity at the RSAC event

Observers at this year’s RSAC will be looking for evidence that the infrastructure supporting agentic AI systems and advanced models can survive cyber risk, data integrity failures and real-world disruption. This has become critical as AI scales in the enterprise. Data integrity and resilience have become key benchmarks for organizational preparedness and gaps remain a stubborn issue. A recent study by theCUBE Research revealed that only 12% of surveyed organizations can recover all their data following an attack and 34% experienced data losses greater than 30% over the past year.

Findings such as these highlight the evolving role of cybersecurity in enterprise AI implementations. AI models are voracious consumers of data and organizations that do not pay attention to data security, backup, classification, and access control will pay the price.

“The key takeaway for the security industry is this: In an AI-driven world, real-time data integrity is the new perimeter,” said John Furrier, executive analyst at theCUBE Research. “It’s not enough to detect breaches — you have to validate data continuously and be able to reverse machine-speed actions instantly. Cybersecurity is evolving from preventing access to preserving trust in live data. Data and cybersecurity are converging big time, and the new normal is detect, protect and recover. Now, real time becomes the critical variable as agents and AI proliferate.”

Embracing autonomous protection

This convergence of data and cybersecurity is reshaping how organizations execute defensive strategies in the AI era. One area where this has become more prevalent is in the handling of security alerts. The sheer math of dealing with the volume of alerts organizations receive highlights the scope of a dilemma. Most organizations process an average of 960 alerts per day, based on recent survey data. For large enterprises, this number can exceed 3,000 daily alerts. The survey also found that each alert investigation takes an average of 70 minutes, creating an impossible situation for humans to handle.

The solution is automation, utilizing AI to sift through massive volumes of alerts, and apply real-time classification, prioritization and pattern recognition that otherwise could not be done by humans at scale. It is yet another example of how AI will need to become ingrained in the fabric of cyber defense for most organizations.

“AI has fundamentally changed the security equation,” said Dave Vellante, chief analyst at theCUBE Research. “We’ve moved from perimeter defense and reactive protocols to real-time, autonomous protection embedded directly into infrastructure and applications. TheCUBE’s coverage this year focuses on both the architectural shift that AI demands and how security is transforming from a toolset into a full-stack discipline that spans silicon, data platforms, cloud and application layers. In our view, the winners in cybersecurity will be those who treat AI not as a feature, but as the operating fabric of modern infrastructure.”

Collaboration and learning at RSAC

At this year’s RSAC event, the theme is collaboration and the industry’s efforts to collectively solve hard problems. A number of companies are pursuing joint efforts on cybersecurity initiatives. In December, NetApp and F5 Inc. announced an expanded collaboration to drive high-performance data delivery and prepare for the post-quantum cryptography era.

Last year, Ernst & Young unveiled its EY.ai Agentic Platform, a byproduct of the firm’s collaboration with Nvidia Corp. to integrate private AI reasoning models with human knowledge to enhance agentic productivity. The platform is built on the full Nvidia AI stack and delivers domain and sector AI agentic solutions that include risk management and cyber resiliency.

These collaborative examples are part of the framework of support that RSAC seeks to foster in its annual gathering. The key, according to Britta Glade, senior vice president of content and communities at RSAC, is to take learnings from the conference and apply them in a real-world context.

“How can I take what I learn from the conference and infuse it in my organization at home for the benefit of the good?” said Glade, during a recent interview with theCUBE. “It’s such an important time with the changes that are entering in from an agentic world where you have coworkers that aren’t human anymore — it’s code that’s making decisions. There are so many changes happening by the second.”

TheCUBE event livestream

Don’t miss theCUBE’s coverage of the RSAC 2026 Conference from March 23-26. Plus, you can watch theCUBE’s RSAC event coverage on-demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch theCUBE’s coverage of RSAC 2026 Conference, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE podcasts

SiliconANGLE’s “theCUBE Pod” is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube, which you can enjoy while on the go. During each podcast, SiliconANGLE’s John Furrier and Dave Vellante unpack the biggest trends in enterprise tech — from AI and cloud to regulation and workplace culture — with exclusive context and analysis.

SiliconANGLE also produces our weekly “Breaking Analysis” program, where Dave Vellante examines the top stories in enterprise tech, combining insights from theCUBE with spending data from Enterprise Technology Research, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.

Guests

During the RSAC 2026 Conference, theCUBE analysts will talk with industry experts from NetApp, StackHawk, Dell, Capital One and RSAC, among others, about how enterprise security is being reshaped by identity fragmentation, autonomous threats and AI systems that move faster than traditional controls.

Here’s theCUBE’s full pre-event interview with Britta Glades and Linda Gray Martin, SVP of the RSAC Conference:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the RSAC 2026 Conference. Sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: SiliconANGLE