ZDNET’s key takeaways
NordVPN is evolving its products for AI threats.
An invisible, catch-all solution is easiest to adopt.
The future of secure AI is small, local models.
AI has hijacked many basic principles of the security landscape. The cybersecurity industry is adapting to that threat by preparing for new threats and implementing AI as a tool.
Redefining antivirus
NordVPN recently launched what it calls “next-gen antivirus,” or NGAV, as a catch-all security tool for your online life. The offering attempts to build on antivirus, a now-incomplete term that refers to a time when threats came in the form of malicious files. But files aren’t the main problem anymore. Socially engineered scams, phishing, and identity theft have ballooned, becoming a significantly bigger part of the threat landscape and rapidly scalable with AI.
Also: Why I still recommend NordVPN to most people in 2026
“We don’t believe that viruses right now are coming through floppy disks and CDs,” Briedis said. “All the protection that you need right now, basically, is on the internet.”
Next-gen antivirus is NordVPN’s answer to this reality. Starting with its VPN offering and securing the “tunnel” was the company’s first task. The second, as Briedis put it, was addressing what’s coming through that tunnel. NGAV, which NordVPN describes as “a security system for your entire digital life,” promises to warn users about scam websites, block ads and trackers, and remove malware “quietly in the background.”
That last part is crucial. As AI-enabled threats multiply and become more seamless, Briedis believes a solution that runs invisibly in the background and doesn’t require technical expertise to manage is the best way to convince people to adopt better security hygiene.
Briedis echoed what Proton CEO Andy Yen told ZDNET back in April: security companies can offer users protection, but they can’t save them from themselves. In Briedis’ case, the sentiment points to how easy — and risky — trying AI tools has become.
Also: Rogue AI incidents hit ‘tens of thousands’: Can businesses trust these tools?
“There’s always a human element,” he said. “We usually joke in the IT world, between the geeks, that the weakest link between the computer and the chair is the human.”
Briedis said NordVPN still thinks it’s important to help people understand the tools they’re using, where encryption matters, the data they’re sharing and with whom, and where the risks lie.
Agents as the next attack surface
But with the rise of privacy-breaching personal AI agents, the internet isn’t really the only place users need protection. How does NordVPN square the reality of agents operating on devices, with or without the internet, as an area it can’t control? Rather than stop at the computer and the human, Briedis said the key is making agents themselves less vulnerable.
“We are looking into how to protect agents as well, because we see that agents [themselves] could be attacked on your computer,” Briedis said. “I think all cybersecurity is going to go there eventually. It’s kind of a no-brainer, because we’re going to use [agents] every day.”
Also: Inside Google’s faster Chrome patch strategy to block AI attacks on your browser
This feature is still in development and doesn’t yet have a name, but it would be part of the NordVPN app when it’s released.
Using AI at NordVPN
Like most tech companies, NordVPN has built bespoke AI into its products while also using frontier models from major labs internally.
For its next-gen antivirus feature, NordVPN said it develops small models in-house to tackle specific tasks, like spotting phishing attempts and other scams.
“There are about 20 parameters that we can tweak on the go, and they work pretty well right now,” Briedis said. These models can also run locally on a user’s device. “You will not need a lot of hardware to do that these days, because they are really small.”
Also: A low-tech solution from the past may be your best defense against AI deepfakes
As for using AI internally, Briedis said NordVPN builds with a blend of models, but now often favors open-weight models. Like many companies, it started using primarily frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic, but costs quickly built up. With where open-source model performance is now, NordVPN isn’t losing any capabilities by switching.
As a result, Briedis said the amount of code produced at NordVPN has “skyrocketed.” However, that code goes through a thorough review process, which can create an approval bottleneck.
“We are not doing the simple software development life cycle. We do secure software development lifecycle,” he said.
Still, there are limitations: Briedis said one of NordVPN’s “non-negotiables” is that teams handling payments, for example, don’t use AI at all. Experimenting and innovating are reserved for other parts of the business.
Also: I tested NordVPN’s free scam checker with real phishing emails
Briedis also noted NordVPN programmers are experiencing a now-common reality across tech companies: the pressure to adapt as their careers change shape.
“I think every software development company right now is kind of changing how they work, and a lot of programmers [are] trying to figure out what they’re going to do in five to 10 years right now, because their profession is changing so much,” he said.
Privacy and AI at odds
Given AI’s growing unpopularity and its proven privacy risks, some security-conscious customers might feel uneasy about AI and privacy tools sharing space in a product. But Briedis said NordVPN hasn’t yet experienced customer pushback about AI in features like next-gen antivirus, partly because AI use is already common.
“I cannot imagine people these days not using AI at all,” he said.
Also: 7 privacy settings I change ASAP on every new phone – here’s why
Besides, the main way to sustain trust with your customers is not using their data for model training, which Briedis reiterated NordVPN stands by.
Protections like the EU’s GDPR can add a layer of assurance on top of private company promises. On that front, however, Briedis thinks over-regulation — which he believes has happened in Europe — risks stifling innovation.
“For example, the CRA Act that we’re going to have in Europe — it’s getting really hard for us to create software if we want to tick all those boxes to develop by that act,” he said.
The future of secure AI use
ZDNET asked Briedis about his dream security tool for the AI-embedded future. What would he build if he had no limits and could address every attack surface seamlessly?
“For now, I think it’s all about the information that is happening around you in your environment,” he said. “There could be an app or device that follows you and tracks all your information, with your name and what is happening on the internet around you as a person, to make sure that data is interconnected, safe, and secure.” It makes sense: something to surveil your every point of exposure, but for your protection rather than exploitation. Ideally, a product like this would safeguard your information and automatically delete it from the internet as required.
Also: 10+ VPN tricks and tips I recommend to everyone
“The ideal scenario, I would say, is everything is on premises and on your machine, but that’s not going to happen,” Briedis added. “But I think that tool should help you to think and to make sure that your data is encrypted at rest — even maybe encrypted in use, which is a really hard task if you don’t have specialized hardware these days — and encrypted in transfer as well. Those three pillars altogether, I think, would be the best-case scenario.”
Consumer hardware like phones and PCs are adapting to accommodate on-device AI features. That capability doesn’t mean Briedis sees NordVPN branching into hardware to manage the attack surface anytime soon, though.
“It was never our strategy to go into hardware, and I don’t think that we’re going to do it in the next couple of years, that’s for sure,” he said. “But you never know, you know? Maybe there’s going to be a new, really affordable chip that you can use to create a device.”
For a more immediate outlook on the future of AI and security, however, Briedis thinks the key is still going smaller and staying local.
“I think in the end, tech-savvy people are gonna go to their own LLMs, on their own computers,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time in my mind.”
Radhika Rajkumar
Senior Editor
Radhika Rajkumar is a senior editor at ZDNET based in New York City. She covers AI, specializing in safety, privacy and security, policy, education, and synthetic media. She also leads ZDNET’s newsletter strategy.
Radhika holds a Masters in Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism from The New School.
See full bio
Click Here For The Original Source.
——————————————————–
