Rising Impact of AI in Cyber Risk Management in the Context of Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises
Shyam Sunder Agrawal, Divya Mahajan, Nidhi Sharma, Amanjot Singh Syan · River Publishers eBooks · 2026
The chapter focuses on the changing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in cyber risk management of small and medium businesses (SMBs)/SMEs; such that this sector is fast becoming a haven for advanced cyber threats without the need for requisite resources, expertise, or structured strategies that would guarantee effective digital security. Not only has AI increasingly gained ground in the practice of information security, but it is also worth mentioning that there is a limited amount of literature available that has focused on SME-specific challenges but with regard to cost-effective implementation, less awareness and training, ethical and regulatory concerns, preparedness of the workforce, and lack of transparency in AI-driven systems. In order to attend to such critical topics, the systematic literature review (SLR) methodology PRISMA had been utilized for a structured, transparent, and replicable synthesis of knowledge. An initial pool of 1,160 studies was drawn from three major research databases, namely Scopus, IEEE Xplore, and Web of Science. The time frame for the study was from 2015 to 2025. Rigorous application of specific inclusion and exclusion criteria resulted in a total of 41 studies culled for in-depth analysis. These findings revealed that although AI technologies have great potential in automating threat detection, managing cyber incidents, and improving risk visibility, there are significant barriers among SMEs in adopting these technologies, such as financial strain, insufficient technical expertise, low trust in AI systems, and lack of policy frameworks tailored for them. Moreover, Explainable AI (XAI) was found to be poorly researched regarding SMEs, whereas it could improve trust and understanding among users. The study contributed to the academic debate by defining the contextual limitations of cybersecurity models and calling for the co-creation of simplistically employed, cost-efficient, and scalable AI tools for cyber resilience in SMEs and for meeting future sustainable commitments in the context of SMEs.