By- Seemanta Patnaik, Co-founder & CTO, SecurEyes
In 2025, everything from your inbox to your browser is AI-powered. AI shows up on apps, enterprise dashboards and every sales deck that promises to save time, money, and stress. AI now sits at the epicentre of almost every administrative transformation, speeding up operations, improving precision, bringing down costs and even running support functions like HR or finance. People have developed a reflexive trust. If it has AI, it must be good. If it has more AI, it must be better.
But in cybersecurity, this automatic belief is dangerous. A genuinely intelligent security tool can strengthen defences. A cleverly marketed one can create overconfidence, widen blind spots and ultimately make organisations less safe. The challenge today is not that AI is being used, but that AI is being used as a label, often louder than the tool’s actual capabilities.
To understand the hype, it helps to first understand the mindset of the modern digital user. We live in a time shaped by constant screens, viral content, and a generation trained to consume tech at speed. When Netflix can drop a trailer and the internet explodes within hours, you know how fast narratives travel. Security vendors use this same speed and familiarity to market AI. The word itself triggers excitement, or sometimes fear, and companies lean into that emotional response. “AI-powered” feels futuristic. “AI-driven” feels authoritative. But stripped of buzzwords, many tools still rely on the same rules-based engines they always have.
This is where awareness becomes critical, and ironically, you’ve already defined the three layers that matter most.
Policy awareness:
Every organisation should know the basic dos and don’ts of security, including what a security tool should be able to do. If a vendor claims their AI can “eliminate all human error,” “block every threat,” or “predict attacks with 100% accuracy,” policy awareness helps teams immediately recognise these as red flags. AI is powerful, but it is not magic, and any tool that promises perfection is selling a dream, not a defence.
Threat awareness:
You already emphasised the importance of recognising fraud, risks, and scams. The same principle applies here. Threat-aware teams ask simple but sharp questions:
What exactly is the model detecting?
- Does it learn from real incidents or just training samples?
- Can it identify new threats or only known patterns?
- How transparent is its decision-making?
An AI security tool that can’t explain its logic is just a black box with a shiny UI.
Cultural awareness:
This is perhaps the most overlooked layer. You once described it as “making cybersecurity a natural part of daily life.” The truth is, even the smartest tool collapses if the people using it don’t build secure habits. A company can buy the most expensive “AI-powered” firewall and still get compromised because someone clicked a malicious link or shared a password. No tool, AI or otherwise, replaces culture.
This is where the hype becomes harmful. When organisations buy tools that sound intelligent, they often assume the tool will think for them. But AI is only as strong as the culture surrounding it. A realistic AI tool supports your people. A hyped one replaces responsibility with comfort.
What worries practitioners today is not simply that AI is misunderstood, but that the gap between hype and reality is widening. You’ve already dealt with topics like digital scams and cyber-awareness sessions, and the pattern is similar: when people don’t understand how something works, they are more vulnerable to manipulation. Cybercriminals are now using AI effectively, including deepfakes, automated phishing, and impersonation, while some security vendors are still treating AI as a branding exercise.
So how do you tell what’s real?
Look for transparency, not theatrics.
Look for explainability, not slogans.
Look for measurable impact, not promises.
Look for alignment with your culture, not escape from responsibility.
AI can strengthen cybersecurity; that part is real. But only when it is grounded in clarity, not hype. As organisations begin relying more on automation and as digital expectations rise, the burden is on leaders to choose wisely. The smartest tools are not the ones with the loudest marketing, but the ones that fit into a considerate, aware, human-centred approach to security.
The future will be shaped by AI, no doubt. But safety will always be shaped by people.