The number of software security vulnerabilities discovered in 2026 is on pace to roughly double the total reported in 2025, largely because AI has made it much faster to identify software flaws, Bloomberg reports.
By late July, the U.S. National Vulnerabilities Database had already recorded more than 45,000 vulnerabilities, nearly matching the total for all of 2025, which was itself a record year. Major technology companies, including Oracle, Microsoft and Google, have reported dramatic increases in the number of security flaws they identified and patched.
Experts attribute this surge to AI-powered tools that enable researchers and security teams to find vulnerabilities more quickly and at a much larger scale.
Despite the increase in discovered flaws, there has been no corresponding rise in known exploited vulnerabilities, as many issues are being found and patched internally before attackers can use them. For example, Google reported that most of the vulnerabilities fixed in a recent Chrome update were discovered by its own AI-assisted security efforts.
At the same time, cybersecurity experts warn that attackers are also benefiting from AI, with the average time required to develop a working exploit falling from 72 hours to just 24 hours.
