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Cloud intrusions increased by 136% in the past six months. North Korean operatives infiltrated 320 companies using AI-generated identities. Scattered Spider now deploys ransomware in under 24 hours. However, at Black Hat 2025, the security industry demonstrated that it finally has an answer that works: agentic AI, delivering measurable results, not promises.
CrowdStrike’s recent identification of 28 North Korean operatives embedded as remote IT workers, part of a broader campaign affecting 320 companies, demonstrates how agentic AI is evolving from concept to practical threat detection.
While nearly every vendor at Black Hat 2025 had performance metrics available, either from beta programs in process or full-production agentic AI deployments, the strongest theme was operational readiness over hype or theoretical claims.
CISOs VentureBeat spoke with at Black Hat are reporting the ability to process significantly more alerts with current staffing levels, with investigation times improving substantially. However, specific gains depend on the implementation maturity and complexity of the use case. What’s notable is the transition from aspirational roadmaps to real-world outcomes.
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VentureBeat is also starting to see security teams begin to achieve practical, real efficiency gains that translate to the metrics boards ask about. These include reducing the mean time to investigate (MTTI), improving threat detection rates and better resource utilization. Black Hat 2025 marked an inflection point where the conversation shifted from AI’s potential to its measured impact on security operations.
The agentic AI arms race shifts from promises to production
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