Hackers are shrinking the time between a software flaw becoming public and a real attack to mere hours, and artificial intelligence is helping them move even faster, according to CrowdStrike’s new 2026 Threat Hunting Report. The cybersecurity company said AI has become both a target and a weapon for attackers. Threat groups are using AI to generate malicious code, automate parts of their operations, abuse enterprise AI systems, and target the software supply chains that many companies rely on. One campaign highlighted by CrowdStrike sent nearly 200,000 requests to an AI model service in just two minutes, demonstrating how quickly attackers can abuse enterprise AI infrastructure. “AI is now embedded in modern adversary operations. It is changing how attacks are planned, executed, and scaled while expanding the attack surface organizations must defend,” said Adam Meyers, head of counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike also found that AI agent-triggered detection leads are appearing at 2.5 times the rate of human-triggered leads, increasing the amount of activity security teams must investigate. Patch windows are collapsing The report’s most …