Hack The Box (HTB), the cyber readiness platform for humans and AI, has published its 2026 Global Cyber Skills Benchmark Research Brief, presenting three years of benchmark data on cybersecurity team performance and AI adoption. The research shows that teams are solving challenges considerably faster, completing a larger share of the available challenges, and increasingly using AI agents as part of their workflows.
AI adoption was particularly visible among the competition’s highest-performing teams. Although AI agent accounts represented only 2.7% of all registered accounts, 17 of the top 25 teams, or 68%, had an AI agent account. These agents were responsible for 4.2% of submitted flags and 4.6% of points earned. The research does not demonstrate a causal relationship between AI use and improved team performance. It does indicate, however, that AI has already become part of the working toolkit for a significant portion of the competition’s strongest cybersecurity teams.
Competition performance has changed considerably over the three-year period. The median recorded time-to-solve fell from 26.1 hours in 2024 to 13.8 hours in 2026, representing a reduction of more than 12 hours. Meanwhile, the number of teams that completed the full challenge board increased from two teams in 2024 and three in 2025 to 15 teams in 2026, despite an expansion in the size of the board.
These developments come as AI continues to reshape both offensive and defensive cybersecurity. Recent industry disclosures, including Hugging Face’s July 2026 incident disclosure and OWASP’s Q1 2026 GenAI exploit roundup, highlight how AI is introducing new security risks while becoming increasingly embedded in the attack surface and defensive response. For security leaders, the priority extends beyond AI adoption to ensuring that cybersecurity practitioners possess the expertise and judgment required to direct, test and validate AI-generated work.
“The question for security leaders is no longer whether AI will become part of cybersecurity operations. That is already happening on both sides of the equation,” said Haris Pylarinos, Founder and CEO of Hack The Box. “What matters now is whether teams have the expertise to use it safely and effectively. Our data shows that AI is appearing most often alongside some of the strongest practitioners, not instead of them. As agents become more capable, human judgment, validation and hands-on technical skill become more important, not less.”
AI is changing how top cyber teams work
The latest findings extend previous HTB research into the relationship between AI and cybersecurity performance. Earlier controlled benchmarking examined how practitioners performed when working with AI, while the new research examines where AI agents are being used when competitors are free to determine their own methods.
Taken together, the research indicates that AI is progressing beyond experimentation and becoming integrated into the workflows of experienced cybersecurity professionals. The findings also underscore the continuing importance of human expertise in directing, assessing and validating work produced with AI.
The complete 2026 Global Cyber Skills Benchmark Research Brief is available HERE.
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About Hack The Box
Hack The Box is the leading cyber readiness platform for the agentic era, battle-testing and upskilling both humans and AI agents to enhance organizational cyber resilience. Trusted by the Fortune 500, government agencies, and managed security service providers (MSSPs), the platform delivers threat-informed learning paths consisting of real-world scenarios in gamified labs and live-fire simulations that build and validate offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. With a loyal community of more than 4.3 million members and more than 800 enterprise customers, Hack The Box empowers teams and intelligent systems alike to strengthen cyber defenses and reduce breach risk effectively. Learn more at www.hackthebox.com.
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