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The 2026 AppSec Leader’s Guide to Survival in the AI Era

What 250+ AppSec leaders are up against in 2026, and how to stay ahead.

Download the Survey & Guide

AI has fundamentally changed how applications are built—and how they need to be secured.

We surveyed over 250 AppSec stakeholders to understand how teams are adapting. What we found: the challenges are real, the old playbook is breaking, and the path forward requires a fundamentally different approach.

87% have adopted AI coding assistants—but “keeping up with AI-driven development” is the #1 challenge for 2026.

Half of all AppSec teams spend over 40% of their time just triaging findings from tools. Alert fatigue can no longer be ignored.

73% are regularly asked by execs about application risk posture and ROI, but most are still only reporting on activity metrics.

What’s Inside the Guide

  • ï…ŠPart 1: Our New AppSec Reality - How AI coding assistants, LLM components, and accelerated development are reshaping the threat landscape.
  • ï…ŠPart 2: The Outcomes - Prioritization paralysis, triage overload, production risks slipping through, and reporting that doesn't answer executive questions.
  • ï…ŠPart 3: What AppSec Leaders Actually Need - The case for intelligence-first AppSec—and what it looks like in practice.
  • ï…ŠPart 4: The Playbook - Practical guidance across visibility, runtime testing, correlation, and measurement—covering people, process, and technology.
Download the Survey & Guide

Key Survey Insights

AI-era risks are already in production.

77% are building AI/LLM components into applications—introducing entirely new vulnerability classes.

Application visibility is a critical gap.

Only 30% of organizations are very confident in their understanding of their application attack surface.

More AppSec tools isn’t solving the problem.

Although 94% of teams use at least one AppSec testing tool, with the majority using 2+, critical risks still slip through.

Triage is consuming limited resources.

71% cite alert fatigue as a moderate to critical challenge for 2026, and the volume of alerts is only increasing with AI coding.

Who This Guide Is For

  • ï…ŠAppSec leaders building programs that scale with AI-driven development
  • ï…ŠCISOs who need to answer board-level questions about risk posture
  • ï…ŠSecurity practitioners navigating the shift from activity metrics to risk-based outcomes
  • ï…ŠEngineering leaders working to align security with development velocity
Download the Survey & Guide

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