AI can ‘disproportionately’ help defend against cybersecurity threats, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says
Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks in conversation with Emily Chang during the APEC CEO Summit at Moscone West on November 16, 2023 in San Francisco, California. The APEC summit is being held in San Francisco and runs through November 17.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Munich, GERMANY — Rapid developments in artificial intelligence could help strengthen defenses against security threats in cyber space, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Amid growing concerns about the potentially nefarious uses of AI, Pichai said that the intelligence tools could help governments and companies speed up the detection of — and response to — threats from hostile actors.
“We are right to be worried about the impact on cybersecurity. But AI, I think actually, counterintuitively, strengthens our defense on cybersecurity,” Pichai told delegates at Munich Security Conference at the end of last week.
Cybersecurity attacks have been growing in volume and sophistication as malicious actors increasingly use them as a way to exert power and extort money.
Cyberattacks cost the global economy an estimated $8 trillion in 2023 — a sum that is set to rise to $10.5 trillion by 2025, according to cyber research firm Cybersecurity Ventures.
A January report from Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre — part of GCHQ, the country’s intelligence agency — said that AI would only increase those threats, lowering the barriers to entry for cyber hackers and enabling more malicious cyber activity, including ransomware attacks.
“AI disproportionately helps the people defending because you’re getting a tool which can impact it at scale.
Sundar Pichai
CEO at Google
However, Pichai said that AI was also lowering the time needed for defenders to detect attacks and react against them. He said this would reduce what’s known as a the defenders’ dilemma, whereby cyberhackers have to be successful just once to a system whereas a defender has to be successful every time in order to protect it.
“AI disproportionately helps the people defending because you’re getting a tool which can impact it at scale versus the people who are trying to exploit,” he said.
“So, in some ways, we are winning the race,” he added.
Google last week announced a new initiative offering AI tools and infrastructure investments designed to boost online security. A free, open-source tool dubbed Magika aims to help users detect malware — malicious software — the company said in a statement, while a white paper proposes measures and research and creates guardrails around AI.
Pichai said the tools were already being put to use in the company’s products, such as Google Chrome and Gmail, as well as its internal systems.
“AI is at a definitive crossroads — one where policymakers, security professionals and civil society have the chance to finally tilt the cybersecurity balance from attackers to cyber defenders.
The release coincided with the signing of a pact by major companies at MSC to take “reasonable precautions” to prevent AI tools from being used to disrupt democratic votes in 2024’s bumper election year and beyond.
Adobe, Amazon, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok and X, formerly Twitter, were among the signatories to the new agreement, which includes a framework for how companies must respond to AI-generated “deepfakes” designed to deceive voters.
It comes as the internet becomes an increasingly important sphere of influence for both individuals and state-backed malicious actors.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday described cyberspace as “a new battlefield.”
“The technology arms race has just gone up another notch with generative AI,” she said in Munich.
“If you can run a little bit faster than your adversary, you’re going to do better. That’s what AI is really giving us defensively.
Mark Hughes
president of security at DXC
A report published last week by Microsoft found that state-backed hackers from Russia, China, and Iran have been using its OpenAI large language model (LLM) to enhance their efforts to trick targets.
Russian military intelligence, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and the Chinese and North Korean governments were all said to have relied on the tools.
Mark Hughes, president of security at IT services and consulting firm DXC, told CNBC that bad actors were increasingly relying on a ChatGPT-inspired hacking tool called WormGPT to conduct tasks like reverse engineering code.
However, he said that he was also seeing “significant gains” from similar tools which help engineers to detect and reserve engineer attacks at speed.
“It gives us the ability to speed up,” Hughes said last week. “Most of the time in cyber, what you have is the time that the attackers have in advantage against you. That’s often the case in any conflict situation.
“If you can run a little bit faster than your adversary, you’re going to do better. That’s what AI is really giving us defensively at the moment,” he added.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan makes a speech on stage in Taipei, Taiwan May 19, 2025.
Ann Wang | Reuters
President Donald Trump said Monday that he and members of his cabinet met with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, days after he called on the head of the chipmaker to resign. Intel shares rose 2% in extended trading.
“I met with Mr. Lip-Bu Tan, of Intel, along with Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “The meeting was a very interesting one. His success and rise is an amazing story. Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
An Intel spokesperson confirmed the meeting.
“Earlier today, Mr. Tan had the honor of meeting with President Trump for a candid and constructive discussion on Intel’s commitment to strengthening U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
Tan has been an Intel director since 2022, and in March he replaced Pat Gelsinger as CEO. Last week Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., questioned Tan’s ties to China. Cotton brought up a past criminal case involving Cadence Design, where Tan had been CEO, and asked whether Intel required Tan to divest from positions in chipmakers linked to the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army and any other concerning entities in China.
Trump’s latest message marks a stark change in tone from last week. In a Truth Social post on Thursday, the president wrote that Tan “is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem.”
Intel said in a comment later that day that the company, directors and Tan are “deeply committed to advancing U.S. national and economic security interests.”
The Trump administration has taken a heavy hand in the business world, particularly in the semiconductor market, as the U.S. battles with China for supremacy in artificial intelligence. Over the weekend, Nvidia agreed to pay the federal government a 15% cut in return for receiving export control licenses that will allow it to once again sell its H20 chip to China and Chinese companies. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited Trump in the White House on Friday.
President Trump on Monday said that he initially asked Nvidia for a 20% cut of the chipmaker’s sales to China, but the number came down to 15% after Huang negotiated with him.
“I said, ‘listen, I want 20% if I’m going to approve this for you, for the country,'” Trump said at a news conference in Washington, D.C.
Tan, 65, took over Intel after the struggling chipmaker had failed to gain significant traction in the AI market, which Nvidia dominates, while it was burning cash to build its foundry business for chip manufacturing.
Tan was born in Malaysia and raised in Singapore before moving to the U.S. and receiving a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said in late July that his first few months as Intel’s CEO had not been easy, with layoffs and cuts to the foundry division.
Intel canceled plans for manufacturing sites in Germany and Poland and would slow down development in Ohio, he told employees.
“Turning the company around will take time and require patience,” Tan said on a conference call with analysts in July. “We have a lot to fix in order to move the company forward.”
Intel shares are up 3% this year as of Monday’s close. The S&P 500 is up 8.4%.
— CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report.
Technology
StubHub IPO is back on for September after ticketing company delayed plans on tariff concerns
StubHub, the ticketing marketplace that spun out of eBay in 2020, has resumed its plans to go public and is now aiming to hold its IPO next month, CNBC has learned.
The company originally paused its IPO plans in April as the stock market was reeling from President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs. The decision came after StubHub submitted its prospectus in March indicating it would list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “STUB.”
StubHub now expects to kick off its IPO roadshow after Labor Day, Sept. 1, and make its debut later in the month, according to a source familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential.
The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
StubHub also filed an updated IPO prospectus on Monday. It reported revenue growth in the first quarter of 10% from a year earlier to $397.6 million. Operating income came in at $26.8 million for the period, after the company lost $883,000 in the year-ago period, but its net loss widened to $35.9 million from $29.7 million a year ago.
The IPO market has come to life in recent months after an extended dry spell due to high inflation and rising interest rates. A flurry of startups have made their public debuts, including rocket maker Firefly Aerospace, design software company Figma, crypto firm Circle and AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave. Bullish, the cryptocurrency exchange that counts Peter Thiel as an investor, also filed its IPO prospectus last month.
StubHub has been a longtime player in the ticketing industry since its launch in 2000. It was purchased by eBay for $310 million in 2007, but was reacquired by its co-founder Eric Baker in 2020 for $4 billion through his new company Viagogo.
The company had sought a $16.5 billion valuation before it began the IPO process, CNBC previously reported. StubHub didn’t provide an expected pricing range for its shares in the filing.
As it prepares to go public, StubHub is contending with hefty competition in the online ticketing market. In addition to Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, StubHub is up against secondary market companies, including Vivid Seats, SeatGeek and TicketNetwork
For the first quarter, StubHub reported gross merchandise sales of $2.08 billion, up 15% from a year prior. That was a slowdown from 47% expansion the previous quarter. StubHub said GMS, or the total value paid by buyers for tickets and fulfillment, builds in each quarter and that initial sales for major concert tours typically occur near the end of the year.
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