OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and 100-plus tech firms call for stronger cyber defences against AI-driven attacks

More than 100 technology companies and organisations, including OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Anthropic and Amazon Web Services, have called for a major push to strengthen cyber defences as artificial intelligence makes cyberattacks faster and more capable.

The companies made the call in an open letter published on Thursday, warning that organisations have a limited window to improve their defences before AI-powered attacks become more common.

The letter, titled “A call for collective action on cyber defense”, brings together companies from the AI, technology, cybersecurity and financial sectors. Cisco, IBM, Cloudflare, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Visa, Mastercard and Citadel are among the other signatories.

The group argues that AI is changing both sides of the cybersecurity fight. Attackers can use AI to find weaknesses and carry out attacks more quickly, but the same technology can also help defenders identify and fix vulnerabilities.

“We have a limited window to strengthen cyber defenses before AI-enabled cyberattacks become more widespread and sophisticated,” the companies said in the letter.

The signatories have called on organisations to treat cybersecurity as a leadership priority rather than leaving it solely to security teams. They want companies to identify and fix high-risk vulnerabilities, tighten access controls and check that their security measures actually work.

The letter also asks cybersecurity companies and technology providers to keep testing their systems against increasingly capable AI models. It calls for defensive AI tools to be made available to organisations running critical infrastructure and for companies to share information about emerging threats.

Call for governments to step up

The companies have also called on governments to play a larger role in protecting essential services.

The letter asks governments to coordinate cyber defence efforts across countries and provide funding and support to organisations that may not have the resources to defend themselves against advanced attacks.

Hospitals, water utilities and local governments are specifically mentioned as organisations that should have access to defensive AI tools and authorised security testing. The companies also want frontier AI developers to give security teams access to their models and tools, particularly those that do not have the resources of large technology companies.

“Put cyber-capable AI in the hands of defenders, starting with the teams protecting essential services,” the letter said.

The signatories also want AI companies to improve the way they monitor and track the use of AI agents. They called for greater sharing of threat assessments, security tools and tested playbooks with governments and other cybersecurity partners.

The letter comes as AI models are becoming increasingly capable of performing tasks that were previously handled by human cybersecurity teams. The companies argue that defenders should be able to use those capabilities before attackers gain a significant advantage.

Rather than treating AI only as a new source of cyber risk, the signatories are pushing for it to become part of the response.

The letter’s broader message is that cybersecurity cannot be handled by individual companies alone. AI companies, technology providers, governments and organisations operating critical services will need to work together as attacks become more automated and harder to detect.