AI, Access, and OT Cyber Risk: What Industrial Organizations Can Expect in 2026

More Connectivity, More AI, and Less Margin for Access Errors

Industrial organizations are heading toward 2026 with more connectivity, automation, and digital dependency than at any point in their history. Remote access is no longer a convenience – it’s how maintenance gets done, how vendors support critical systems, and how issues get resolved fast enough to keep lines running. At the same time, AI-assisted tools are quietly finding their way into engineering, maintenance, quality, and decision-making workflows.

None of this is inherently bad. In fact, it’s what makes modern industrial performance possible.

But these changes only improve operations when access is designed intentionally. When it isn’t, they introduce risk that often stays invisible – right up until it disrupts production or creates a safety issue.

During my time as a CISO and also now as a CEO who regularly talks with plant managers and OT security leaders, one reality shows up again and again: most cyber-related operational disruptions do not start with advanced malware or highly sophisticated attack techniques. What incidents start with is seemingly small access issues:

• Credentials that were reused because it was faster

• Remote connections that outlived their original purpose

• Systems that trusted each other by default and were never revisited as the environment changed

And rather than changing this fundamental truth, AI amplifies it.

As AI becomes embedded in all types of workflows – both as a productivity tool and as an attack accelerator – it shortens the time between a minor access mistake and real operational impact. It also introduces something many plants aren’t yet prepared to manage: non-human actors that don’t just make decisions but can take action without human intervention.

The question now isn’t whether AI will play a role in OT security in 2026. It already does. The real question is whether organizations are adopting the identity, access, and oversight capabilities needed to keep up.

A Quick Plant Reality Check

If you manage or support an industrial site, at least one of these scenarios probably sounds familiar:

• A vendor VPN account that hasn’t been reviewed in years

• Shared credentials used because “production was down and we needed immediate access”

• A service account that runs 24/7 with broad permissions and no owner

• Engineers experimenting with unapproved AI tools to troubleshoot logic or speed up analysis

• Flat network segments because reliability mattered more than segmentation

None of this means the plant is careless or not invested in security. It means there is enormous pressure to keep production lines moving. Again, AI doesn’t create these conditions. But it does make them much easier to find and exploit.

AI Is Already Accelerating Attacks by Exploiting Weak Access Models

Attackers are already using AI to automate reconnaissance, analyze exposed services, and identify misconfigurations at a speed no human team can match. Tasks that once required time, patience, and deep expertise can now be done quickly and cheaply.

This matters in OT because many access models were designed for availability and trust, not continuous adversarial pressure.

Flat networks, broad remote access, and shared credentials still exist in many plants for understandable historical reasons. But AI dramatically lowers the effort required to map those environments and identify the easiest path to a specific asset or process.

As we quickly approach 2026, AI-enabled attacks against industrial environments won’t look loud or chaotic. They’ll be quiet and efficient. Instead of trying to compromise everything, attackers will focus on the most accessible route to exactly what they want – whether that’s a control system, a safety function, or a production-critical asset.

The plants most affected won’t necessarily be facing the most sophisticated adversaries. They’ll be the ones still relying on implicit trust, where access is granted broadly and rarely revisited.

Plants that restrict access by identity, role, and purpose (rather than just network location), dramatically reduce what AI-enabled attackers can see or use. When users and systems can only reach what they are explicitly authorized to reach, even advanced tooling has very little attack surface to exploit.

The takeaway here is simple and practical: Defending against AI-accelerated threats is not about “fighting AI with AI.” It’s about removing unnecessary access.

AI Agents and Shadow AI Are Redefining Insider Risk

A second shift is more subtle but potentially also more disruptive.

As AI copilots, automation engines, and decision-support tools become part of industrial workflows, plants are introducing a new kind of actor into their environments. While these systems are not human, they can initiate actions, approve changes, and interact directly with OT assets.

In many environments today, AI agents operate using shared credentials, service accounts, or APIs that were never designed for autonomous decision-making. When everything works, the result is faster troubleshooting and improved efficiency.

But when something goes wrong (or when an agent is misconfigured or compromised), the outcome can be unsafe commands, unintended configuration changes, or silent data exposure.

Think about it this way: An AI-driven maintenance assistant that can recommend or execute configuration changes is effectively acting like a junior engineer with privileged access – only without human judgment, context, or hesitation.

This risk is compounded by the rise of shadow AI. Engineers and operators, under constant pressure to keep production moving, are increasingly adopting unapproved AI tools to solve immediate problems. These tools often bypass governance entirely, creating access paths that no one is monitoring and no policy explicitly covers.

In 2026, this won’t be an edge case. Industrial organizations will recognize that AI agents represent a new class of insider threat. They require the same level of governance as human users (if not more!) because they operate continuously and at machine speed.

That realization will force a practical evolution of access control in OT environments:

• Identity governance will extend beyond people to include automation and AI systems

• Permissions will need to be narrowly defined based and based on the principle of zero trust

• Real-time supervision will become essential, not “nice to have”

Why Identity-Based Access Will Define OT Resilience in 2026 and Beyond

Taken together, these shifts point to a clear reality: in 2026, access control will define operational resilience in industrial environments.

As AI accelerates both innovation and attack execution, the plants that perform best won’t be the ones with the most security tools. They’ll be the ones with the clearest access boundaries. Identity-based access – where every connection is tied to a specific user or system, a defined purpose, and a limited scope – will allow plants to modernize without increasing risk.

Greater control isn’t about adding friction to operations. When access reflects the real way work gets done, productivity and efficiency actually improve. Plants see fewer risky shared credentials, cleaner audits, faster incident response, and a smaller blast radius when something goes wrong. Strong segmentation and session-level visibility give both security and operations teams confidence, without slowing engineers, vendors, or maintenance teams down.

When access delivers these kinds of operational outcomes consistently, it stops being just a security measure and becomes part of how the plant runs. That’s why secure remote access is increasingly identified as a core operational capability, on par with reliability engineering and safety management. Plants that invest now in identity-based access, segmentation, and governance for automation will be better positioned to absorb change – whether that change comes from AI adoption, workforce shifts, or evolving threat tactics. They’ll modernize faster, recover more quickly, and operate with greater resilience.

Those that delay may not feel immediate pain. But when something eventually goes wrong, the lack of visibility and control will make recovery slower and more disruptive.

The most resilient plants are already taking action by:

• Eliminating shared credentials, including for automation

• Making all remote access purpose-specific

• Treating AI agents and service accounts like users, not background tools

• Gaining session-level visibility, not just network logs

• Designing access around real operational workflows, not theoretical models

These aren’t futuristic ideas – they’re practical steps plants are taking today to stay productive, safe, and resilient as AI becomes part of everyday operations.

At Cyolo, we help industrial organizations to balance uptime, safety, and security modernization by implementing identity-first access that reflects how work actually gets done in OT environments. Want to learn more? Read this solution overview or watch this short product video: