IBM: AI-Enabled Data Breaches Cost Organizations $6 Million on Average

IBM's 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report (Ponemon) finds AI was involved in roughly one in four breaches studied, raising average breach costs to about $6M; attackers are using AI to accelerate discovery and exploitation while many organizations primarily apply AI to detection rather than proactive vulnerability management. The report identifies common failure points—compromised APIs, cloud misconfigurations, Shadow AI and weak access controls for AI systems—and notes critical infrastructure, financial services, energy and healthcare face higher AI-related breach impact.