India Ascends to Global AI Leadership Position, Security Concerns Intensify
India has solidified its status as a global artificial intelligence powerhouse, securing the second position worldwide in enterprise AI and machine learning transactions, trailing only the United States. This remarkable achievement is detailed in the comprehensive 'Zscaler ThreatLabz 2026 AI Security Report,' released by the cloud security leader Zscaler. The findings arrive just one week before the highly anticipated India AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled to take place in New Delhi from February 16 to 20.
Unprecedented Growth and Regional Dominance
The report, which analyzed nearly one trillion AI and ML transactions on the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform throughout 2025, reveals that Indian enterprises recorded an astonishing 82.3 billion AI/ML transactions between June and December 2025 alone. This colossal volume represents 46.2 percent of all AI activity across the Asia-Pacific region, firmly establishing India as the undisputed regional leader.
This explosive growth is attributed to sustained government-backed digital transformation initiatives, substantial public and private investments in AI infrastructure, and extensive skills development programs throughout 2025. The expansion of an AI-enabled workforce, coupled with cloud-first architectures that facilitate rapid and scalable deployment of AI services, has significantly accelerated India's AI adoption compared to previous years.
Sector-Wide AI Integration and Governance Gaps
AI activity in India is being driven predominantly by key economic sectors. The Technology & Communication sector led with 31.3 billion transactions, followed by Manufacturing (15.7 billion), Services (12.6 billion), and Finance & Insurance (12.2 billion). This widespread integration indicates that AI is transitioning from a mere productivity enhancement tool to a fundamental component of business operations.
However, the report sounds a critical alarm regarding security governance. Many organizations lack even a basic inventory of their active AI models and embedded features, leaving them unaware of where sensitive data might be exposed. "India's scale of enterprise AI adoption is accelerating faster than most organizations' ability to govern it," emphasized Suvabrata Sinha, CISO-in-Residence for India at Zscaler.
Sinha further stressed the urgent need for a zero-trust security approach, stating, "With AI now embedded in everyday business applications and workflows, the security priority for Indian enterprises is clear: understand where AI is being used, inspect the data being shared, and enforce the right controls consistently."
The Rise and Weaponization of Agentic AI
A central theme of the upcoming India AI Impact Summit is the emergence of "Agentic AI"—autonomous systems capable of planning and executing actions independently. The Zscaler report delivers a stark warning: this advanced technology is already being weaponized by malicious actors.
Zscaler researchers conducted controlled security scans, revealing that enterprise AI systems tested under real adversarial conditions fail almost immediately. The median time to first critical failure was a mere 16 minutes, with 90 percent of systems compromised in under 90 minutes. In the most extreme case, defensive measures were bypassed in a single second.
"As more evidence of AI-driven attacks by cybercriminals and nation-state espionage groups is uncovered, ThreatLabz warns autonomous and semi-autonomous 'agentic' AI will increasingly automate cyberattacks," the report cautions. It predicts AI agents will soon handle reconnaissance, exploitation, and lateral movement within networks, forcing defenders to prepare for attacks that scale and adapt at machine speed.
Massive Data Exposure and Global Implications
The global scale of data funneled into AI applications in 2025 reached over 18,000 terabytes—equivalent to approximately 3.6 billion digital photos. This massive data influx has transformed popular tools into concentrated repositories of corporate intelligence. For instance, Grammarly processed 3,615 terabytes of traffic, while ChatGPT handled 2,021 terabytes.
ChatGPT alone was linked to 410 million Data Loss Prevention policy violations, involving attempts to share sensitive information like source code and medical records. As these data repositories expand, they become prime targets for cyber espionage, highlighting a critical vulnerability in the AI ecosystem.
"AI is no longer just a productivity tool but a primary vector for autonomous, machine-speed attacks by both crimeware and nation-state actors," stated Deepen Desai, EVP of Cybersecurity at Zscaler. "In the age of Agentic AI, an intrusion can move from discovery to lateral movement to data theft in minutes, rendering traditional defences obsolete. To win this race, organizations must fight AI with AI by deploying an intelligent Zero Trust architecture."
The India AI Impact Summit 2026, set to convene global tech luminaries including NVIDIA's Jensen Huang, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Google's Sundar Pichai, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, and Qualcomm's Cristiano Amon, will provide a crucial platform to address these pressing challenges. The summit aims to foster dialogue among tech leaders, policymakers, and innovators on securing India's AI-driven future while harnessing its transformative potential.
