Nearly four in five organisations lack the infrastructure required to scale AI securely, according to new research from JumpCloud, even as almost all businesses move toward wider artificial intelligence adoption.
In its Q1 2026 IT Trends Report, The Dual Disconnect: Why Your AI Maturity Now Fails to Scale, JumpCloud found that while 40% of IT leaders believe their organisations are AI mature, only 22% meet what it describes as the objective standards required for leading AI readiness. The study also reports that 99.6% of organisations are now progressing toward AI implementation in some form.
The report highlights what JumpCloud terms a “maturity illusion” — a gap between perception and infrastructure. According to the data, 60% of IT professionals say their current environments leave them unable to protect against rapidly evolving threats, as AI tools expand operational complexity.
Security concerns remain high. While 90% of leaders report productivity gains from AI adoption, 74% say they are worried about security risks. The most frequently cited issues are unauthorised data access and AI-generated phishing attacks.
Shadow AI is another emerging pressure point. The report found that 61% of organisations acknowledge the use of unsanctioned AI tools inside their environments, creating governance and visibility gaps that IT teams may struggle to monitor or control.
Joel Rennich, senior vice president, product management, JumpCloud, said: “The data is clear: AI maturity isn’t measured by how fast you deploy, but by how securely you scale. The maturity illusion exposes a dangerous reality—you cannot secure a dynamic AI layer on a fragmented operational base. As shadow AI and autonomous agents expand the attack surface, organisations must bridge the gap between their perceived capabilities and their actual infrastructure readiness. The path to scaling AI safely lies in IT unification: consolidating identity and access controls for both humans and bots to turn AI from a potential liability into a sustainable engine for growth.”
Identity and access management is positioned as a central solution. The report shows that 85% of IT leaders believe secure identity and access management is critical to scaling AI safely, particularly as autonomous agents and machine identities proliferate alongside human users.
Securing the ecosystem —
The findings arrive alongside the launch of JumpCloud Ventures, a new venture arm focused on early-stage companies building identity, security, AI, and IT productivity technologies. The programme reflects the company’s strategy to support what it describes as foundational technologies for modern enterprises seeking to scale securely.
Announcing the initiative, Rajat Bhargava, CEO, JumpCloud, said: “Greg Keller and I have spent much of our careers building companies from the ground up. At our current scale, it is time to give back. We are supporting emerging companies tackling hard problems in identity and security. JumpCloud Ventures is about investing in innovation and helping these companies grow.”
The venture arm’s first investment is in Tofu, a startup focused on preventing identity fraud during the hiring process — a risk area that has grown as organisations expand remote and distributed workforces.
Bhargava added: “Identity-based attacks often begin long before a user ever logs in. Hiring and onboarding represent an important but underexplored area of identity risk. Tofu is bringing new thinking to that problem, which is why we’re excited to support the team through JumpCloud Ventures.”
Jason Zoltak, co-founder and CEO, Tofu, said: “JumpCloud’s support is a strong validation of the problem we’re solving. Our mission is to build the identity and security platform for recruiting that helps establish a new foundation of trust in an AI and remote working world. This is a new problem that has suddenly emerged. While companies are ill-equipped to solve it, we’re ready to help every company establish a stronger layer of trust between talent, security, and candidates. We’re excited to work with the JumpCloud team as we continue to build and scale our platform.”
JumpCloud said the venture programme will operate as a long-term investment initiative, offering portfolio companies access to its network and operational experience, without prescribing product integration or direction.
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