Security teams are optimistic about AI’s impact on their careers, but workloads remain high.
Tines’ Voice of Security 2026 report surveyed more than 1,800 global security leaders and practitioners to understand how teams are adapting in the age of AI. The research shows strong confidence in AI’s potential even as manual work, operational pressure, and burnout remain widespread. In many organizations, AI adoption hasn’t meaningfully reduced day-to-day workload yet.
If leaders don’t help teams reduce pressure and develop the skills needed for AI-driven security work, burnout will continue and experienced practitioners may leave, increasing organizational risk.
Below are three key takeaways from the research and what leaders should do next to keep teams efficient and engaged.
1. Pressure and optimism exist at the same time
Security teams are under significant strain. Four out of five teams (81%) say they’ve experienced an increase in workload over the past 12 months, with 33% reporting the increase as “significant.”
Much of this is still muckwork, with teams still spending on average 44% of their time on manual or repetitive work that could be automated. That’s the equivalent of roughly 3.5 hours of an average 8-hour workday.
As a result, 76% of security professionals report experiencing burnout in the last year. Heavy workloads emerge as the main cause (39%), while repetitive tasks also factor in significantly (26%).
Perhaps in recognition of its ability to fundamentally address these issues and improve their day-to-day working conditions, security teams are feeling overwhelmingly positive about the impact AI will have on their careers and industry.
Most respondents (86%) say AI will create new career opportunities. And they’re ready to move fast: 81% believe their team is prepared to reskill or hire for AI-related security roles.
2. The role is changing and so are the skills needed to thrive
Looking ahead, respondents say the top skills for security professionals in 2026 are:
- AI literacy and prompt engineering (36%)
- Cloud and infrastructure security (34%)
- Security automation and scripting (28%)
- Threat intelligence and analysis (28%)
- Data governance and ethics (25%)
Soft skills like cross-team collaboration and stakeholder engagement also have an important role to play, representing an opportunity to expand security’s visibility and strategic impact across the organization.
As security work increasingly involves interpreting AI outputs, validating decisions, and orchestrating workflows across automated systems, leaders must help teams upskill to meet these new priorities.
Instead of spending almost half of their time on manual, repetitive tasks that can (and should) be automated, teams must reclaim their focus for further development and prioritize tasks that require human judgment, governance, and oversight.
3. Security practitioners want work-life balance
Leaders and practitioners value different things. If they remain misaligned, friction and attrition may follow.
Leaders believe retention comes from providing modern tools and automation (40%), career growth opportunities (40%), and flexible work (39%). But ultimately, the research shows, the number-one thing that keeps practitioners in their roles is a good work-life balance.
To keep teams happy and retain experienced talent, leaders must listen to what practitioners really want. With such high percentages of manual work and burnout, reducing daily friction matters more than introducing new tools alone.
Intelligent workflows are the key to winning back time and ensuring a healthy work-life balance. They unite AI, automation, integration, and humans to move work smoothly across systems and people, enabling teams to reduce manual work, increase visibility, and scale their resources securely and confidently.
Almost all respondents (92%) say that an intelligent workflow platform would be very or extremely valuable, delivering benefits like higher productivity (48%), faster response times (41%), and better data accuracy (40%), as well as less manual work (31%) and happier employees (30%).
What leaders need to do next
To prevent burnout, reduce risk, and retain talent, security leaders should:
- Support reskilling and skill development: Empower practitioners to learn new skills to stay ahead of emerging AI capabilities as well as protect against AI-powered threats.
- Prioritize reducing repetitive work: Lighten heavy workloads by automating tasks where possible, freeing up hours every day which can be reinvested in high-impact, strategic work.
- Rethink workflows, not just tools: The right tech matters. However, adding more tools to already broken processes only amplifies the strain on teams. Reevaluate the underlying workflows to identify where AI can make the biggest difference every day.
Want to learn more about how the security industry is evolving? Download the full Voice of Security 2026 report now.
