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Fatima Boolani of Citi on Why AI Isn’t Driving Expected Cyber Budget Growth
Security budgets have long been a safe haven for investors, but that’s now a problem. Artificial intelligence’s expansion of the attack surface has yet to drive the budget growth investors expect, and that gap is weighing on cybersecurity valuations, said Fatima Boolani, managing director and co-head of U.S. software equity research at Citi.
See Also: Taming the Rise of Shadow AI Agents
The disconnect was most evident in early 2026, when several cybersecurity vendors beat earnings and raised guidance, yet still saw their stock prices fall.
“We haven’t seen realizable growth in those budgets. We’ve definitely seen an uptick in budgetary growth, but it’s not an order of magnitude better, as you would maybe expect with AI being a vector that’s consequentially changing the attack profile or the attackable surface of the average organization,” Boolani said.
In this video interview with Information Security Media Group at RSAC Conference 2026, Boolani also discussed:
- How AI is exposing application security workflows to frontier lab disruption;
- Why DevSecOps convergence has stalled on procurement barriers, not technology gaps;
- How large language models could challenge incumbent SIEM platforms from CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks.
Boolani is a senior equity research leader covering cybersecurity and infrastructure software. With more than a decade of experience across major Wall Street firms, she has extensive domain expertise, a strong track record in stock selection, and trusted insight into enterprise software and security markets.
