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AI is changing cybersecurity work in two ways: security teams must protect AI systems, and practitioners may use AI in existing security work. To prepare, choose a target role, build its cybersecurity fundamentals, add relevant AI security knowledge, and show what you can do through practical work. No single credential or tool guarantees a job.
What AI is changing in cybersecurity careers
NIST describes two complementary workforce needs: people who can secure AI against cyberattacks and mitigate threats involving AI, and people who understand how AI may affect cybersecurity tasks and roles. AI security is therefore broader than learning to operate an AI tool; it includes understanding the risks and opportunities where AI and cybersecurity intersect.
NIST’s June 2025 discussion described work to develop an AI Security Competency Area and consider AI-related tasks, knowledge, and skills in existing and new roles. By December 3, 2025, NICE Framework Components v2.1.0 had updated the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Security competency area. NIST’s workforce discussion and v2.1.0 release notice describe this evolution.
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Begin with the work you want to do, not a generic list of AI topics. NIST’s NICE Framework organizes cybersecurity work and learner capabilities through tasks, knowledge, and skills. Use the current components to identify what your target role calls for, then compare those requirements with what you can already demonstrate.
Build role-relevant cybersecurity foundations
NIST/NICE’s July 2025 workforce summary reports organizational priorities that include data protection, identity and access management, incident response, cloud computing, and threat detection technologies. These are reported priorities, not a checklist that applies to every employer or role. They are useful foundations to assess alongside the specific NICE tasks, knowledge, and skills for your chosen role.
Add AI security knowledge
Learn to recognize security risks associated with AI systems, understand how those systems need to be secured, and consider how AI may change security work. The NICE framework is a way to describe and plan for competencies; it does not say every cybersecurity job requires every AI competency.
Show practical evidence
Turn each learning goal into evidence you can explain: for example, a documented analysis, a security exercise, or a project tied to a task in your target role. Keep a record of the task, the skills used, and what you learned. This makes your preparation specific without implying that one project, programming language, or credential guarantees employment.
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How to use NICE to plan a career path
- Choose a target work role or adjacent entry point. Be specific enough to identify the work you want to do.
- Open the current NICE Framework Components. Find the role’s tasks, knowledge, and skills, and note AI-related competencies where relevant. NIST’s SP 800-181 Rev. 1 page identifies the publication as a foundational reference and points readers to current component versions.
- Compare requirements with your existing evidence. Separate skills you can already demonstrate from those you still need to develop.
- Prioritize gaps. Pair role-specific fundamentals with AI security learning that fits the work, rather than trying to master every framework competency.
- Build and document practical work. Choose exercises or projects that let you show the relevant task and explain your decisions.
- Check the component version again. NICE components are updated over time. The v2.1.0 release notice is dated December 3, 2025; confirm the current release before relying on detailed role mappings.
The framework is a planning aid for education and workforce development, not a mandated hiring path. The cited sources do not establish one universal certification, required programming language, or guaranteed route into an AI security job.
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What the workforce numbers do—and do not—tell you
NIST/NICE’s July 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Demand summary reports several figures attributed to other organizations. They offer broad context, but none measures demand for AI cybersecurity jobs alone.
- The summary reports a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projection that information security analyst employment would grow 33 percent from 2023 to 2033. This is a projection for the broader occupation, not a forecast for AI security positions.
- It reports 457,398 cybersecurity job openings and 1,251,007 people employed in the cybersecurity workforce from CyberSeek, as of June 2025. These are dated workforce snapshot figures.
- It attributes a 4.7 million estimated global cybersecurity professional shortage to the 2024 (ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study. This is an estimate, not a count of open AI security jobs.
- It attributes the finding that 90 percent of cybersecurity professionals reported one or more skills gaps on their teams to the same 2024 (ISC)2 study. It also reports that 59 percent of hiring managers said they did not know enough about generative AI to identify which skills professionals would need in an AI-driven world.
- For organizational priorities, the summary attributes these reported percentages to ISACA’s State of Cybersecurity 2024: data protection, 46 percent; identity and access management, 45 percent; incident response, 44 percent; cloud computing, 43 percent; and threat detection technologies, 31 percent.
These figures are reproduced in a NIST-hosted summary with attribution to their original publishers. Their populations and methods differ, so they should not be combined into a single measure of AI-security hiring demand.
Will AI replace cybersecurity analysts?
The cited workforce sources do not quantify AI-caused job displacement or establish that AI will eliminate cybersecurity analysts. They document workforce framework development, evolving skill needs, and reported organizational priorities. That supports preparing for changing tasks and tools, but not a definite prediction about how many jobs AI will replace.
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How to keep your plan current
NIST announced NICE Framework Components v2.1.0 on December 3, 2025, including an update to Artificial Intelligence (AI) Security (NF-COM-002). Because role mappings and components can change, check NIST’s release notice and current NICE components when you make a study plan. The earlier June 2025 workforce discussion describes development work at that time; its earlier status should not be treated as the current state of the competency area.
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