AI & Cybersecurity: What Business Owners Need to Know in 2026

AI is already reshaping how criminals attack businesses, and how defenders fight back. In this session, we’ll cut through the hype and show you what’s really happening at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity: smarter phishing and deepfakes, new risks from everyday AI tools, and the emerging standards (like NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework) that can help you stay in control. You’ll learn how to safely integrate AI into your organization to boost productivity without exposing sensitive data, what “AI governance” actually looks like for a small or mid-sized business, and what’s coming next so you can make confident decisions instead of reactive ones.