Zscaler recently released its ThreatLabz 2025 AI Security Report, drawing on insights from more than 536 billion AI transactions processed between February 2024 to December 2024 in the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform. It discovered real-world threat scenarios ranging from AI-enhanced phishing to fake AI platforms. The report explores recent developments in areas that will influence AI in 2025 and beyond, including agentic AI, the emergence of DeepSeek, and the evolving regulatory landscape.
This latest report from Zscaler reveals a 3,000+% year-over-year growth in enterprise use of AI/ML tools, highlighting the rapid adoption of AI technologies across industries to unlock new levels of productivity, efficiency, and innoation. Enterprises are sending large volumes of data to AI tools, emphasising the extent to which these technologies are integrated into operations.
This growth in adoption also highlights heightened security concerns. Enterprises blocked 59.9% of all AI/ML transactions, signalling enterprise awareness around the potential risks associated with AI/ML tools, including data leakage, unauthorised access, and compliance violations. Threat actors are also increasingly leveraging AI to amplify the sophistication, speed, and impact of attacks—forcing enterprises to rethink their security strategies.
“As AI transforms industries, it also creates new and unforeseen security challenges,” said Deepen Desai, Chief Security Officer, Zscaler. “Data is the gold for AI innovation, but it must be handled securely. The Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform, powered by AI with over 500 trillion daily signals, provides real-time insights into threats, data, and access patterns—ensuring organisations can harness AI’s transformative capabilities while mitigating its risks. Zero Trust Everywhere is the key to staying ahead in the rapidly evolving threat landscape as cybercriminals look to leverage AI in scaling their attacks.”
Key insights from the report include:
- ChatGPT dominates AI/ML transactions: ChatGPT emerged as the most widely used AI/ML application, driving 45.2% of identified global AI/ML transactions in the Zscaler Zero Trsut Exchange. It was also the most blocked tool due to enterprises’ growing concerns over sensitive data exposure and unsanctioned use. Other most-blocked applications include Grammarly, Microsoft Copilot, QuillBot, and Wordtune, showing broad usage patterns for AI-enhanced content creation and productivity improvements
- DeepSeek and Agentic AI: AI is amplifying cyber risks, with usage of agentic AI and China’s open-source DeepSeek enabling threat actors to scale attacks. In 2025 DeepSeek was witnessed challenging American giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, disrupting AI development with strong performance, open access, and low costs. However, such advancements also introduce significant security risks
- US and India lead AI adoption: the US and India generated the highest AI/ML transaction volumes, representing the global shift toward AI-driven innovation. However, these changes aren’t occurring in a vacuum necessarily, and organisations in these and other geographies are grappling with increasing challenges like stringent compliance requirements, high implementation costs, and shortage of skilled talent
- Finance and insurance lead enterprise AI traffic: the finance and insurance sector sector accounted for 28.4% of all enterprise AI/ML activity, reflecting its widespread adoption, and is also indicative of the critical functions supported by the industry, such as fraud detection, risk modelling, and customer service automation. Manufacturing was second, accounting for 21.6% of transactions, likely driven by innovations in supply chain optimisation and robotics automation. Additional sectors, including services (18.5%), technology (10.1%), and healthcare (9.6%), are also increasing their reliance on AI, while each industry also faces unique security and regulatory challenges posing new risks and possibly impacting the overall rate of adoption
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