Too Fast, Too Autonomous?

Rapid AI adoption in India has effectively doubled the cybersecurity market since 2022, but businesses remain underprepared as security capabilities struggle to keep pace with the expanding threat landscape

- Rohit Chintapali

INDIA’S CYBERSECURITY market has effectively doubled since 2022 as companies rush to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) across BFSI, IT & Telecom, manufacturing, government, digital services and other sectors, but enterprises are struggling to secure systems fast enough, according to industry executives, investors and new research.

The expansion is a structural shift in India’s technology spending, with cybersecurity increasingly seen as a core layer of the country’s AI-driven digital economy rather than a back-end IT function. However, experts warn that security controls, governance frameworks and enterprise preparedness are lagging behind the pace of AI adoption, exposing companies to growing risks.

“India’s cybersecurity total addressable market (TAM) has effectively doubled since 2022,” said Diwakar Dayal, Managing Director and Area Vice President for India and SAARC at SentinelOne.

“But the real story is not just the size of the market. AI-driven security is now the primary driver of that growth,” Dayal told BW Businessworld.

He said Indian Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) are moving away from buying multiple point products and instead investing in platforms that embed AI into detection, decision-making and response.

“Indian enterprises are no longer satisfied with tools that merely alert on threats. They expect systems that can autonomously analyse patterns, correlate across endpoints and cloud workloads, and contain incidents before they disrupt business,” Dayal said. “AI-first EDR and XDR are no longer nice-to-have capabilities but the baseline for any serious security posture in India.”

Market Size Soars Led By AI

India’s cybersecurity market has grown from about $3.05 billion in 2022 to $5.56 billion in 2025, and is projected to reach $15.06 billion by 2031, indicating a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18 per cent, according to estimates shared by SenseAI Ventures.