100% of IT Security Leaders in India See Promise in AI Agents – 85% Say Their Security Practices Need an Overhaul

• 83% of IT security leaders in India expect the IT security budget to increase over the coming year
• 76% of IT security teams in India expect to use AI agents within two years — up from 43% today

Bangalore, 22 May, 2025: Salesforce, the world’s #1 AI CRM*, today released its latest State of IT: Security survey, revealing unanimous optimism about AI agents, with 100% of security leaders in India identifying at least one security concern that could be improved by agents. The survey highlights that as AI adoption accelerates and cyber threats increase, 85% IT security leaders in India recognizing their security practices need transformation.

However, despite this hope, the global survey of over 2,000 enterprise IT security leaders – including 100 in India, highlights significant implementation challenges ahead‌. Nearly half (49%) worry their data foundation isn’t set up to get the most out of agentic AI, and over half (52%) aren’t fully confident they have the appropriate guardrails to deploy AI agents.

Why it matters: Both the professionals charged with protecting a company’s data and systems and the bad actors looking to exploit vulnerabilities are increasingly adding AI to their toolkits. Autonomous AI agents, which help security teams cut down on manual work, can free up humans’ time for more complex problem solving. However, agentic AI deployments require robust data infrastructure and governance to be successful.

Comments on the news:

Deepak Pargaonkar, Vice President of Solution Engineering, Salesforce India, shared, “The promise of AI agents in security is undeniable, but unlocking their full potential depends on building trust. While IT security leaders in India recognize the benefits AI agents can bring, many also acknowledge significant readiness gaps in implementing effective safeguards. To truly augment security capabilities with AI agents, organizations must prioritize trusted data, robust governance frameworks, and stringent compliance measures – ensuring data protection and regulatory adherence every step of the way.”

Key insights from the research include:

1. Security budgets ramp up as threats evolve: In addition to a familiar slate of risks like cloud security threats and malware, IT security leaders in India now cite data poisoning — in which malicious actors compromise AI training data sets — among their top concerns. In response, organizations in India are ramping up resources, with 83% of organizations expected to increase security budgets over the coming year.  

1. AI agents offer a salve as adoption ramps up: According to the State of IT research, 43% of IT security teams in India already use agents in their day-to-day operations — a figure that’s anticipated to more than double over the next two years. IT security leaders expect a range of benefits as their use of agents ramps up, ranging from threat detection to sophisticated auditing of AI model performance. 76% of IT security leaders in India expect to use AI agents within two years — up from 43% today.
2. Complex regulatory environments add a wrinkle to AI implementation: While 81% of IT security leaders in India believe AI agents offer compliance opportunities, such as improving adherence to global privacy laws, 87% of say they also present compliance challenges. This may stem in part from an increasingly complex and evolving regulatory environment across geographies and industries, and is hampered by compliance processes that remain largely unautomated and prone to error.

• Just 55% of IT security leaders in India are fully confident they can deploy AI agents in compliance with regulations and standards.
• 84% of organizations say they haven’t fully automated their compliance processes.

1. Trust is a cornerstone of successful AI, yet confidence is nascent: A recent global consumer study found that trust in companies is on a precipitous decline, and three-fifths (60%) agree that advances in AI make a business’s trustworthiness more critical. Furthermore, only 42% of consumers globally trust companies to use AI ethically, a decrease from 58% in 2023. IT security leaders see work to be done in earning this critical trust.

• 40% of IT security leaders in India aren’t fully confident in the accuracy or explainability of their AI outputs.
• 49% don’t provide full transparency into how customer data is used in AI.
• 53% haven’t perfected their ethical guidelines for AI use.

1. Data governance is a linchpin in enterprises’ agentic evolution: Around half (48%) of IT security leaders in India aren’t sure they have the quality data to underpin agents, or that they could deploy the technology with the right permissions, policies, and guardrails, but progress is being made. A recent global survey of CIOs found that four times as much budget was allocated to data infrastructure and management than AI, a signal that organizations were smartly laying the right groundwork for broader implementation.

Methodology:

Data is sourced from a security, privacy, and compliance leader segment of a double-anonymous survey of IT decision-makers conducted from December 24, 2024 through February 3, 2025. Respondents represented Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Salesforce surveyed 200 IT leaders in India — including 100 overseeing security, privacy, and regulatory compliance — to understand how AI, including AI agents, is transforming their work.