Inaugural global study finds close to three-fifths of organisations in Singapore are not fully confident their AI security controls would detect compromised AI

• 87% of Singaporean organisations have deployed AI assistants beyond pilot

• 98% struggle with multi-tool complexity as AI risks expand across email, cloud, collaboration, and AI systems

SINGAPORE, April 28, 2026 – Proofpoint, Inc., a leading cybersecurity and compliance company, today released its 2026 AI and Human Risk Landscape report 2026 AI and Human Risk Landscape report, which explores the widening gap between how quickly organisations are operationalising AI and how prepared they are to secure and investigate the risks that follow. The global study, which surveyed more than 1,400 security professionals across 12 countries, examines how rapid AI adoption is transforming enterprise collaboration and exposing structural weaknesses in security controls and incident response.

AI is increasingly permeating organisations and is now operational across most functions, with deployments spanning customer support, internal messaging, email workflows, and third-party collaboration. 87% of organisations in Singapore have deployed AI assistants beyond the pilot stage, and 70% are actively piloting or rolling out autonomous agents. Yet while organisations are investing in AI tools and controls, many cannot confirm those controls are effective—close to three-fifths (58%) are not fully confident their AI security controls would detect a compromised AI, and half of those with controls in place have already experienced a confirmed or suspected AI-related incident.

Further, most organisations report they are not fully prepared to investigate AI-related incidents that span multiple systems and channels—only one-third say they are fully prepared to investigate one.

“This year’s findings highlight a widening divide between AI adoption and security readiness,” said Ryan Kalember, Chief Strategy Officer at Proofpoint. “Organisations are scaling AI assistants and autonomous agents across core workflows, yet many cannot confirm their controls are effective or fully investigate incidents that move across collaboration channels. As AI becomes embedded in how work gets done, security leaders must rethink how they protect trusted interactions across people, data and AI systems.”

Key Singapore findings from Proofpoint’s 2026 AI and Human Risk Landscape report include:

• AI Deployment Has Outpaced Security Readiness. AI adoption has moved into production faster than governance frameworks have matured. While 87% of organisations in Singapore have deployed assistants beyond pilot stage and 70% are advancing autonomous agents, almost three in five (58%) describe security as catching up, inconsistent or reactive. Close to two out of five (38%) Singaporean organisations report experiencing a suspicious or confirmed AI-related incident, indicating that exposure is already present in live environments.
• Collaboration Channels Are the Primary AI Attack Surface. AI is expanding the attack surface, enabling threats to spread at machine speed and impact connected workflows. While email remains the most common threat vector at 58% in Singapore, exposure now extends across SaaS and cloud applications (44%), collaboration tools, e.g. Teams or Slack (44%), file-sharing platforms (41%), and AI assistants or agents (41%). Among organisations that experienced an AI-related incident, exposure increases across every channel, 61% involving file sharing platforms, and 58% in collaboration tools. 
• Confidence Exceeds Control Effectiveness. While many organisations in Singapore have security controls in place, they also lack assurance. Close to three-fifths (58%) of organisations in Singapore report having AI security coverage in place, yet 53% are not fully confident those controls would detect compromised AI. Further, half of the organisations with controls still reported an AI-related incident. In Singapore, gaps persist in training (55%), governance alignment across teams (45%), and insufficient monitoring or logging (43%).
• Investigation Readiness Lags Behind Incident Reality. When AI-related incidents occur, many organisations in Singapore struggle to investigate them effectively. Only about one-third (32%) of respondents say they are fully prepared to investigate an AI- or agent-related incident, and more than half (51%) report difficulty correlating threats across channels. As AI-related activity spans email, collaboration platforms and cloud systems, the ability to reconstruct events depends on visibility across connected environments, which many organisations do not yet have.
• Tool Sprawl is a Structural Barrier. Fragmentation across security stacks is compounding the challenge, limiting visibility and slowing response when incidents move across systems at machine speed. Almost all (98%) organisations in Singapore say managing multiple security tools is at least moderately challenging, and three in five (61%) describe it as very or extremely difficult. Respondents cite integration challenges (51%), difficulty correlating threats (51%), and visibility gaps (45%).
• Security Architecture Becomes a Strategic Priority as AI Scales. More than half (51%) of organisations in Singapore are actively pursuing vendor and tool consolidation, and 58% believe a unified platform is more effective than point solutions. Over the next 12 months, close to two-thirds (64%) plan to expand AI protections, 61% intend to extend collaboration channel coverage, and 66% expect to move toward a unified platform approach.

"While AI has introduced new risks, such as prompt engineering, its bigger impact has been amplifying the risks we've always had," Kalember said. "Running untrusted code, mishandling sensitive data, and losing control of credentials are the same challenges that humans have created for decades. AI executes them at machine speed and scale. When organisations hand AI the keys to act on their behalf—across customers, partners, and internal systems—the blast radius of any one of those failures grows dramatically. The answer isn't to treat AI as a novel threat category, but to apply rigorous, proven controls to what AI touches, what it runs, and what it's allowed to authenticate as. Organisations that get that foundation right early will scale AI confidently. Those that don't are just automating their own exposure."

“Singapore is a leading hub in Asia for AI deployment and innovation, but the priority now is to put stronger governance around how AI is used, what data it can access, and how activity is monitored across email, cloud and collaboration platforms,” said George Lee, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan, Proofpoint. “The organisations that will move fastest and safest will be those that improve data visibility, govern AI agents with the same discipline as privileged users, and reduce the blind spots created by fragmented security tools.”

To download the 2026 AI and Human Risk Landscape report, please visit: https://www.proofpoint.com/us/resources/threat-reports/ai-human-risk-landscape-report

Methodology

The 2026 AI and Human Risk Landscape report provides a global view into how organisations are adopting AI and managing the security risks that follow. The research examines AI deployment maturity, control effectiveness, incident experience, collaboration channel exposure, and investigation readiness as AI assistants and autonomous agents become embedded in enterprise workflows. In January 2026, more than 1,400 full-time security professionals across organisations of varying sizes and industries were surveyed. Respondents represented 20 industries and spanned 12 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UAE, Australia, Japan, Singapore, India, and Brazil.

About Proofpoint, Inc. 

Proofpoint, Inc. is a global leader in human- and agent-centric cybersecurity, securing how people, data and AI agents connect across email, cloud and collaboration tools. Proofpoint is a trusted partner to over 80 of the Fortune 100, over 10,000 large enterprises, and millions of smaller organisations in stopping threats, preventing data loss, and building resilience across people and AI workflows. Proofpoint’s collaboration and data security platform helps organisations of all sizes protect and empower their people while embracing AI securely and confidently. Learn more at www.proofpoint.com. 

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