Kaseya: SMBs remain cautious on AI despite persistent human error threat

SMBs continue to pursue a cautious approach to AI as part of their cyber defense strategy despite the ongoing threat of human error, new research from Kaseya suggests.

The findings have been taken from the IT management vendor’s 2026 Kaseya Cybersecurity Outlook and its 2025 Global IT Trends and Priorities Report, which quizzed MSPs and their global SMB customers on the latest industry trends and challenges.

They found that AI is not yet widely deployed in cyber defenses due to trust concerns, with only a small minority of businesses (12%) saying they have complete faith in the technology to act autonomously, while 18% still do not use AI at all to enhance their security posture.

Respondents cited accuracy and data privacy as being the top concerns slowing adoption. For those that have leaned into AI, its capabilities have been most widely applied to email security (49%), enhanced endpoint protection (34%), and threat detection and anomaly identification (32%).

Despite this caution, the number one vulnerability continues to be human error, Kaseya revealed, largely driven by poor user practices and inadequate training. In fact, organizations fear this threat vector the most over the coming year.

In terms of cybersecurity challenges, phishing remains the most damaging and persistent issue, having affected more businesses than any other form of attack.

To date, 56% of respondents said they have been impacted, with 49% hit within the past year alone.

Lack of readiness

Businesses are also lacking in readiness as breaches continue to have a significant financial and operational impact, with just 40% of respondents stating that they have a regularly tested, formal incident response plan.

A significant number (37%) of respondents reported they have lost a full day or more to downtime following a security incident, while, at the top end of the cost scale, 18% of companies suffered financial losses of $100,000 or more.

Penetration testing and threat monitoring is also falling short due to costs, with 15% of businesses having no real-time threat monitoring in place at all. Of those that do, one-in-four were found to be inconsistent or to skip testing entirely.

However, Kaseya highlighted pen testing as a ‘profitable opportunity’ for MSPs, with nearly half reporting margins above 20% in this domain.

Despite the persistent challenges, Kaseya said IT leaders remain focused on tackling the challenges around security and business continuity.

The vendor’s Global IT Trends and Priorities report found cybersecurity to be the most cited challenge among participants (49%) as well as the number one investment priority (52%), followed closely by backup and recovery.

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