Short-term risks linked to AI and cyber security have increased significantly, according to Marsh Africa, which this week presented research showing South Africans are adopting AI faster than institutions can respond.
Marsh Africa is part of the Marsh Group and sister company to global management consultancy Oliver Wyman. Executives from the two companies unpacked findings from the Oliver Wyman Forum’s 300,000 Voices study, a five-year global research effort spanning 20 countries, alongside an Oliver Wyman Forum global consumer survey covering SA from 2023 to 2026.
The research examines AI’s impact across finance, health, work, technology, consumer behaviour and leadership. It found that South Africans have adapted to AI and cyber security trends faster than the institutions serving them.
Ben Wilmot-Sitwell, cyber growth leader at Marsh South Africa, said the increasing cyber threat landscape was correlated with insurance investment and its influence on cyber claims. The company did not disclose the number of claims but confirmed it was substantial.
“It’s all about resilience, about being prepared and thinking about how to manage this. The world has become more global and risks have become more interconnected,” said Wilmot-Sitwell.
He said climate change had traditionally topped the list of concerns, but AI had now taken that position.
“Everything around cyber will shoot up in terms of short-term risks in the next year or two,” he added.
Spiros Fatouros, CEO of Marsh Africa and South Africa, said business leaders were increasingly concerned about the risk and its potential impact.
“We are also seeing that C-suite executives are concerned about the ability of their clients to detect, respond to, manage and contain cyber incidents,” said Fatouros.
Cyber crime: Phishing, ransomware and AI-enabled attacks
Marsh Africa executives highlighted phishing as an ongoing challenge, with the wider adoption of generative and agentic AI making phishing campaigns more sophisticated. Ransomware, however, remains the biggest cyber claim within the insurance market.
According to the Sophos State of Ransomware in South Africa 2026 report, 58% of organisations paid the ransom and recovered their data, down from 71% in 2025. The median ransom demand was R6.9 million, while the average cost of recovering from a ransomware attack was more than R17 million, excluding ransom payments. That figure was down from R21 million in 2025.
Marsh Africa expects ransomware attacks to become more targeted and increasingly capable of accessing the “crown jewels” of businesses and crypto systems to demand sizeable ransoms.
“Ransomware is a big industry; we now have ransomware as a service. It is a billion-dollar industry run by nation-state attackers that are very well funded,” said Wilmot-Sitwell.
Riaz Moola, founder and CEO of HyperionDev, said AI-enabled attacks were putting finance, HR, customer service and other non-technical teams increasingly at risk. He cited Interpol’s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026, which showed AI was linked to more than half of the cyber crime cases recorded in Africa in 2025, and that southern Africa was reported as the most targeted region on the continent, accounting for 92% of Africa's ransomware detections and 70% of its business e-mail compromise detections.
"Attackers have adopted AI faster than most organisations have learned to recognise it," said Moola. "A phishing e-mail used to give itself away with poor spelling or a generic greeting. AI can now produce something that mentions your manager by name and the invoice you're expecting this week. Some of the warning signs staff were trained to look for are disappearing."
AI in the workplace
Marsh Africa executives also highlighted AI’s impact on the workplace, saying adoption among South Africans was outpacing organisational alignment.
The 300,000 Voices study shows daily AI use at work increased from 22% in 2023 to 26% in 2025, while those using it three or more times a week rose from 37% to 47%. South Africans who use AI at work report average time savings of 22 minutes an hour, while 60% say it has improved their work-life balance.
Concerns about career prospects remain, however. Sixty-one percent of employees believe more than half of the jobs in their company could be replaced by AI, up from 57% in 2023.
Among power AI users, half are learning prompt engineering, 46% are refining outputs through iterative feedback, 43% are getting initial feedback from team members and 42% are asking for multiple outputs at once.
Only 44% of South African workers say their company is ready to adopt AI at scale. AI usage is already deeply embedded in media and telecoms (95%), transportation (91%) and technology (83%), but readiness to scale varies. Technology leads at 62%, while the public sector sits at 27% and retail at 31%.
The research also reveals a striking divide between the C-suite and the rest of the workforce. While 53% of executives believe their company is ready to scale AI, confidence falls to 35% among non-managerial employees. And while 33% of executives believe their organisation has articulated a clear AI vision and kept employees informed, only 10% of non-managerial staff agree.
AI in everyday life
According to the Oliver Wyman Forum consumer survey, AI is increasingly shaping South Africans’ financial and healthcare decisions, workplace expectations and trust in institutions. Sixty-six percent report having used AI for everyday banking, 62% for financial planning and advice, and 53% for investing.
In healthcare, nearly 70% report using AI for health-related questions, including 43% for urgent healthcare needs. Employees are also placing greater importance on recognition and feeling valued at work, ranking these factors ahead of location and working arrangements when considering what matters most in the workplace.
At the same time, there is a significant gap in perceptions of leadership, with 70% of executives saying their company’s leaders demonstrate emotional intelligence well, compared with 37% of non-managers. Trust is also increasingly concentrated outside traditional institutions, with 82% of South Africans saying they trust the brands they use most, compared with 36% who trust national government and 29% who trust local government.
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