AI at Machine Speed: Why Continuous Threat Exposure Management Is Now a Business Imperative

Artificial intelligence is reshaping cybersecurity faster than regulation or governance frameworks can keep pace. In 2025, industry reporting showed a measurable decline in successful ransomware campaigns as defenders adopted automation and AI-driven detection. Yet at the same time, threat actors began scaling personalized phishing, malware mutation, and reconnaissance using generative AI, compressing attack timelines and lowering barriers to entry.

Against that backdrop, Casey Corcoran, Field CISO at Stratascale, argues that organizations must abandon static security models and embrace Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) as an operating discipline. A veteran technology executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience, including CISO, CIO, and CTO roles at five publicly traded multinational companies, Corcoran now advises complex global enterprises on aligning cybersecurity with business resilience.

In this SecurityInfoWatch Q&A, he outlines why agentic AI identities require governance equal to privileged users, why compliance is no longer sufficient, and why cybersecurity must be embedded at the board level to withstand AI-driven threats operating at machine speed. 

SecurityInfoWatch (SIW): From your perspective, what trends or shifts in 2026 will force companies to rethink their approach to cybersecurity?

Casey Corcoran: The biggest shift in 2026 is the acceleration of AI on both sides of the cybersecurity equation. Security teams are rapidly adopting AI and automation, which has helped reduce the number of successful ransomware campaigns. But threat actors are leveraging generative AI to scale attacks faster than ever—from highly personalized phishing to malware that adapts in real time.

Regulations are still catching up. Organizations cannot wait for policy to dictate action. They need adaptive defense models, such as CTEM, that continuously monitor, prioritize, and remediate threat exposure. Once you understand your attack surface dynamically, you can begin to control risk in a meaningful way.

Corcoran: Many organizations treat threat exposure as a checklist—run a scan, conduct a pen test, fix high-risk findings, and move on. But exposure is fluid and contextual. A configuration change, new third-party integration, or business process shift can introduce risk immediately.

CTEM establishes a continuous cycle of visibility, prioritization, and proactive reduction aligned to business impact. It’s not about identifying vulnerabilities in isolationists about managing exposures across people, processes, and technology in real time.

SIW: With regulations evolving slowly, how should companies build effective security strategies?

Corcoran: Leaders must adopt a resilience mindset. Compliance sets minimum standards, but those standards often lag behind today’s AI-driven threat landscape. Organizations should develop risk-based models grounded in business impact and translate those into technical and procedural controls.

CTEM is powerful because it aligns exposure management with business priorities. It continuously assesses and remediates risk to keep pace with threat velocity and complexity.

SIW: What is one immediate change security leaders must make in an AI-driven environment?

Corcoran: Stop treating agentic identities like service accounts. Agentic AI systems operate at machine speed inside critical workflows. They require governance similar to that for privileged human users—strict identity controls, defined access boundaries, and transparent accountability.

Security leaders must work with business stakeholders to define guardrails: where these digital actors can operate, what they can access, and how decisions are validated and monitored.

SIW: What happens when cybersecurity is treated as a routine task rather than a strategic function?

Corcoran: Misalignment. Security becomes a cost center rather than a driver of resilience. Controls may become overly restrictive or insufficient, creating operational or compliance risk.

Cyber resilience requires embedding security into business strategy. With AI amplifying both human and technical vulnerabilities, cybersecurity must be a board-level conversation with shared accountability between operations and security.

SIW: How can organizations ensure CTEM drives outcomes rather than becoming another checkbox?

Corcoran: It starts with mindset and executive sponsorship. Organizations must continuously identify, assess, prioritize, and remediate exposures. That requires real-time telemetry and shared accountability across teams.

You also need clarity on your “crown jewels.” If you cannot articulate how a threat could disrupt operations or erode trust, advanced tools become noise generators. When tied directly to business outcomes, CTEM strengthens adaptability and reduces the likelihood of successful attacks.