In reflecting on 2018 from a security perspective, some of the major themes, as I've written previously, have been about new AI security tools, industry consolidation and the blurring of lines between physical and cyber security. GRDP, the California Consumer Privacy Act and Facebook's seemingly never-ending scandals related to consumer privacy have also raised regulatory and public awareness of data privacy as a key issue and concern. These discussions will continue into next year and beyond, and there a number of other big trends that are likely to dominate the security industry in 2019. Here are seven that I believe we'll be looking at in the new year and for some time after that: As the number and range of threats continue to grow, it's clear that only AI can counter them. That's why we saw some big companies announce AI-based solutions in 2018, including Palo Alto Networks' behavioral analytics solution Magnifier and Alphabet's Chronicle.