Editorial illustration for Kyndryl Study: Only 35% of Indian Firms Prepared for AI Cyberattacks
Only 35% of Indian Firms Ready for AI Cyberattacks
Indian companies are getting better at making money from AI and worse at defending it. Kyndryl's 2026 Readiness Report, out this week, found 60% of Indian business leaders reporting positive returns on AI investments, a three-point gain from 2025. At the same time, average readiness to manage external risks dropped eight percentage points to just 27%. Only 35% of Indian organisations say they're fully prepared to handle cyberattacks, down 10 points from last year, though that still beats the global average of 26%.
The numbers point to a widening split between how fast companies are rolling out AI and how fast they're building the guardrails for it. Three in four leaders said AI helps spot threats faster than before, yet that hasn't translated into confidence about actually responding once an attack hits. The findings come from a survey of 3,700 senior business leaders spanning 21 countries, including 200 from India, and land at a moment when 85% of Indian firms have pushed AI past pilot stage into live workflows. Kyndryl's chairman and CEO, Martin Schroeter, weighed in on what's driving the gap.
Three in four leaders said AI helps their organisations identify threats faster, even as confidence in their ability to respond to cyberattacks has weakened.
Why this matters
The numbers in Kyndryl's report tell a story Indian enterprise leaders should sit with: 85% of organisations have pushed AI past pilot stage into live workflows, yet readiness to handle external risks dropped eight points to 27%. That's not a minor gap, it's a sign that deployment speed has decoupled from security planning. For founders and developers building AI products for the Indian market, this is a signal about what your enterprise customers actually look like on the inside.
They're buying, they're integrating, they're seeing returns (60% report positive ROI), but the teams meant to catch an adversarial prompt injection or a data leak are underfunded and under-prepared. For researchers studying AI security, this is a live case study in how adoption curves and defense curves diverge in practice, not theory. The Kyndryl quote about the "bar for readiness" constantly moving is worth taking literally: whatever threat model Indian CISOs built last year is already outdated.
Anyone selling AI tooling into this market should expect buyers who are confident about outcomes and genuinely exposed on the back end.
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Common Questions Answered
What does the Kyndryl 2026 Readiness Report reveal about Indian firms' preparedness for AI cyberattacks?
According to the Kyndryl 2026 Readiness Report, only 35% of Indian organisations say they're fully prepared to handle cyberattacks, which represents a 10-point decline from the previous year. This declining preparedness is particularly concerning given that 85% of Indian organisations have already moved AI beyond pilot stage into live workflows, creating a significant security gap.
How have Indian business leaders' returns on AI investments changed according to the Kyndryl study?
The Kyndryl report found that 60% of Indian business leaders are reporting positive returns on their AI investments, representing a three-point gain from 2025. This improvement in AI ROI demonstrates that Indian companies are increasingly monetizing their AI initiatives successfully.
What is the disconnect between AI threat detection and cyberattack response capabilities in Indian enterprises?
While three in four Indian leaders reported that AI helps their organisations identify threats faster, confidence in their ability to respond to cyberattacks has significantly weakened. This paradox reveals that Indian enterprises have better threat visibility through AI but lack the preparedness and resources to effectively respond to detected threats.
How much did average readiness to manage external risks drop among Indian organisations?
According to the Kyndryl 2026 Readiness Report, average readiness to manage external risks dropped eight percentage points to just 27% among Indian organisations. This substantial decline indicates that despite rapid AI deployment, Indian firms are falling behind in their ability to manage security risks associated with external threats.
What does the gap between AI deployment speed and security planning suggest for enterprise customers in India?
The report shows that 85% of Indian organisations have pushed AI into live workflows while readiness to handle external risks dropped to 27%, indicating that deployment speed has decoupled from security planning. This gap signals to AI product developers and founders that their Indian enterprise customers are operating with significant security vulnerabilities despite their rapid AI adoption.
Further Reading
- Papers with Code - Latest NLP Research - Papers with Code
- Hugging Face Daily Papers - Hugging Face
- ArXiv CS.CL (Computation and Language) - ArXiv
