Akamai’s Richard Meeus, Senior Director of Security Technology and Strategy EMEA, says AI is at an “inflection point” but is “still primarily accelerating existing risks more than creating entirely new ones”. He notes that the barrier to entry for cybercriminals has been lowered, with bad actors automating tasks like phishing campaigns and reconnaissance. Meeus advises that “the defensive playbook needs to evolve, not be replaced”, emphasizing that “strong cyber hygiene, rigorous identity controls, timely patching and Zero Trust remain the foundations of effective security”. He identifies frontier AI as the most pressing risk, as frontier models compress the gap between flaw discovery and exploitation in the wild, making “defence in depth” more important. Akamai has signed a seven-year cloud deal with Anthropic valued at US$1.8bn.