Cybersecurity companies look to artificial intelligence as they struggle to find human workers

If you're going to the play the "AI" drinking game at RSA Conference 2019, you may not make it out alive. Ahead of the industry's largest trade show in San Francisco, vendors are already touting AI-based solutions meant to address one of the industry's most pressing issues: a scarcity of workers qualified to defend against cyberattacks. Over the past week, both Palo Alto Networks Inc. PANW, -0.30% and Microsoft Corp. MSFT, 0.72% announced new AI-branded services to address an often-cited lack of cybersecurity workers qualified to keep on top of an exponentially growing number of cyberattacks. In a report released Thursday, however, Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO, 0.50% said that the industry may actually be cooling to AI-powered cybersecurity.