Application security is facing a new reality in 2026. AI is moving into production, APIs are changing faster than security teams can track, AI crawlers and agents are creating new access-control challenges, and application downtime is becoming more expensive. The 2026 Radware Cyber Survey, conducted by Osterman Research, shows that innovation is accelerating, but security controls, visibility, and response capabilities are not always keeping pace.
AI adoption is one of the clearest examples. According to the report, 83% of organizations are making widespread use of GenAI or LLM functionality across customer-facing and internal applications. At the same time, 96% expect to implement AI agents or autonomous workflows within the next 12 months, and 39% have already implemented at least one. AI is no longer limited to pilots or experimentation. It is becoming part of live application environments.
Many organizations still lack the visibility required to secure this new environment. Only 17% say they have full visibility into AI agents or AI-driven processes operating in their organization. Visibility into AI crawler traffic is even lower, with just 14% reporting a complete view. At the same time, 76% experienced a negative impact from AI crawler traffic or AI agents over the past 12 months, and 74% say managing autonomous AI agent access is a high or critical priority.
APIs tell a similar story. Almost half of organizations now update APIs for production usage daily or more frequently, yet only 7% have full and complete API documentation, and just 19% have a fully automated and continuously updated API inventory. As API environments change more quickly, incomplete documentation and manual discovery can leave organizations with an outdated view of their attack surface.
The availability picture is also becoming harder to ignore. 71% of organizations experience application-layer or API-targeted DDoS attacks on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The financial impact is rising as well, with the average cost of downtime from a successful HTTPS flood or Layer 7 DDoS attack reaching $7,530 per minute, up from $6,106 last year.
Response speed is another growing concern. Only 21% of organizations report the highest level of readiness to manage application security incidents, while the average time to fully resolve a significant API, bot, or DDoS-related incident is 2.8 hours. As attacks become faster and more automated, slow investigation and response give attackers more time to cause damage.
Together, these findings point to a broader shift in application protection. Security teams now need to manage AI adoption, crawler and agent traffic, fast-changing APIs, and application availability as part of the same operational challenge. Stronger visibility, runtime protection, automation, and faster response are becoming essential to keeping pace with how applications are being built, accessed, and attacked in 2026.
Read the full report to see where security teams are making progress, where gaps remain, and what these trends mean for application protection in 2026.