Trend Micro, the leader in cloud security, have announced new research which reveals that over two-fifths of British IT leaders believe that AI will replace their role by 2030.
Following on from Trend Micro’s official predictions for 2021, we wanted to hear more from UK IT leaders. Compiled from interviews with 500 UK IT directors and managers, CIOs and CTOs, the study offers a glimpse into the future of the profession, and what kind of threats they believe will be most pervasive in several years’ time.
Only 9 per cent of respondents were confident that AI would definitely not replace their job within a decade. In fact, nearly a third said they thought the technology would eventually work to completely automate all cybersecurity, with little need for human intervention.
Around a quarter of IT leaders we polled also claimed that by 2030, data access will be tied to biometric or DNA data, making unauthorised access impossible.
Bharat Mistry, Technical Director, Trend Micro said: “We need to be realistic about the future. While AI is a useful tool in helping us to defend against threats, its value can only be harnessed in combination with human expertise. We shouldn’t worry about jobs becoming obsolete. The profession will certainly adapt and evolve in new ways. In the meantime, AI and automation can help us to alleviate the problems caused by critical skills shortages.”
In the shorter term, respondents also predicted the following outcomes by 2025:
- Most organisations will have significantly reduced investment in property as remote working becomes the norm (22 per cent)
- Nationwide 5G will have entirely transformed network and security infrastructure (21 per cent)
- Attackers using AI to enhance their arsenal will be commonplace (19 per cent)
- Security will be self-managing and automated using AI (15 per cent)
- Many governments, including the UK’s, will have begun plans for a “single digital identity” (13 per cent)
- Early-adopters of “digital immortality” (AI facsimiles of a person after death) will start to appear online
Next year, UK IT bosses said they are shaping up to focus investment in staff training and education, with a particular focus on remote working, and deploying more automation to support SOC teams.
