The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) unveiled a blueprint called Cyber Shield, developed jointly with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), to deploy autonomous AI agents capable of finding and neutralizing cyberattacks on national networks in real time. The NCSC stated the objective is to “build a national-scale, collaborative approach to agentic cyber defence, using frontier AI to identify, reduce and resolve our national cyber risk.” The proposal comes as the NCSC warns that AI is already helping attackers perform activities such as vulnerability discovery and reconnaissance “at a much greater scale and faster pace,” reducing the time available for defenders to respond. While the agency said it has not yet observed fully autonomous attacks across the complete intrusion lifecycle, it expects frontier AI models to eventually operate from initial access through actions on objectives. According to the blueprint, Cyber Shield would rely on AI-powered “red” and “blue” agents to identify weaknesses in systems, detect threats, and progressively automate cyber defense activities. The NCSC said it plans to begin by partnering with network defenders across government and critical UK sectors before transitioning to commercially scalable deployments.