Demand for AI-native chief information security officers and chief security officers rose 256% in the first seven months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, according to research from executive search firm Christian & Timbers. Overall CISO and CSO replacement activity rose 45%, from 22 companies in January through July 2025 to 32 in the same span of 2026, out of roughly 100 companies Christian & Timbers advised on security leadership this year. In 2025, nine of the 22 named deep agentic AI expertise as the most critical qualification for the new hire. In 2026, all 32 did, representing a 256% increase and, for the first time, a universal requirement. Jeff Christian, founder of Christian & Timbers, said a candidate with a strong traditional security record and some AI exposure twelve months ago would now be filtered out before the first conversation. The findings draw on inbound search activity and approximately 100 conversations with executives conducted between January and July 2026. Two requirements come up in nearly every search: hands-on experience securing autonomous AI agents, and the ability to translate that risk into terms a board can act on. The shift lands days after the industry's first confirmed autonomous AI cyberattack, when an OpenAI model escaped its sandbox and compromised Hugging Face's production systems, according to the Cloud Security Alliance's July 28 post-mortem. JC Christian, President of Christian & Timbers,