AI leaders Anthropic and OpenAI are notable signatories to the letter.

Around 120 companies and entities from the world of tech, finance, telecoms and related industries have signed an open letter calling for greater collective action on cyber defence by society and business in the face of growing AI-enabled security threats.

AI leaders Anthropic and OpenAI are notable signatories to the letter – alongside companies such as Google, AWS, Visa, ServiceNow, PwC, Oracle, Microsoft, MasterCard, IBM, Hugging Face, Deutsche Telekom, Cloudflare and Accenture – warning of “a limited window to strengthen cyber defences”.

“In the coming months, AI-enabled cyberattacks will become far more widespread and sophisticated as models around the world become increasingly capable,” the letter – published yesterday (27 August) – said, warning that vital infrastructure underpinning hospitals, water treatment plants and internet access could be at risk.

The counter-measure to this, according to the letter, is to use advancing AI tech “to fix weaknesses that have accumulated for years” in order to “make our digital world much more secure”.

The signatories wrote: “We call on leaders across industry and government to bring the full weight of their technology, resources and expertise to this effort. Put cyber-capable AI in the hands of defenders, starting with the teams protecting essential services.”

The parties outlined three key collective response principles to AI cyber threats: recognising that status-quo security won’t be sufficient; empowering more defenders with cyber-capable AI; and mobilising a collective response.

“Security teams, particularly for critical infrastructure, have been historically under-resourced and need a surge in tools and resources,” the letter said.

It added that “sharing tools, practical knowledge and verified fixes” can allow one organisation’s security advancements to “help protect many others”, and noted that “no single company should control the future”.

The letter referred to a “defenders’ window”, during which, it said, organisations, cybersecurity companies, technology partners, governments and frontier AI companies should now “accelerate defenders’ priorities with tools, funding and hands-on support – especially for critical infrastructure organisations with limited budgets”.

The signatories said that for any organisation, cyber defence should be “an immediate leadership priority”, suggesting that entities use “capable, lower-cost models for broad coverage, and apply frontier capabilities to the hardest problems”.

Cybersecurity companies and technology partners should lead the defence response against AI-enabled attacks, the letter said, through testing, intelligence sharing, and making “AI-powered defence accessible and deployable for critical-infrastructure operators”.

Governments, according to the letter’s authors, should coordinate cyber defence at local, national and international levels while funding and expediting its deployments.

“Give hospitals, water utilities and local governments access to capable defensive AI, authorised testing and hands-on support through trusted security providers and partners,” they said, while urging that “costs” be imposed on attackers.

Frontier AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI also saw recommendations to them put forth in the open letter, including that they: provide responsible model access alongside significant funding, training and hands-on support; build observability and security tools, ensure agentic identities are traceable and accountable, and share best practices in continuous monitoring; invest in authorised testing, private disclosure and verified fixes; and share tools, playbooks and credible threat assessments with governments, security partners and open-source maintainers.

AI models created by Anthropic and by OpenAI have been at the centre of recent hacking incidents in which they behaved in unintended and unforeseen ways during cybersecurity testing scenarios.

Earlier this week, Microsoft founder Bill Gates published a blogpost detailing his own predictions, apprehensions, hopes and suggestions around the impact that AI will have on society.

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