2026 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards: Community Choice Winners Selected Through 80,000 Votes

Cybersecurity Insiders, the research arm behind the awards, released the Community Choice results during Black Hat USA, reporting 79,455 ballots that crowned vendors across security operations, exposure management, and a newly expanded AI‑security slate. Holger Schulze, founder and CEO, highlighted that AI‑security now occupies ten distinct award tracks, reflecting vendors’ attempts to embed machine‑learning safeguards into access control, data protection, detection, and response workflows. The voting surge signals that practitioners are actively endorsing solutions that claim to mitigate AI‑related threats, a shift from the single AI category that existed two years ago.

The surge in AI‑focused votes aligns with broader industry momentum: Black Hat’s agenda is saturated with AI‑risk sessions, and Cybersecurity Insiders’ own survey lists scaling detection‑response capacity, pre‑emptive risk reduction, and AI‑centric controls as top priorities for 2026. The ten AI categories suggest that vendors—from traditional endpoint protection firms to pure‑play AI startups—are positioning themselves as specialists in niche AI threat vectors rather than offering generic security suites. This fragmentation could intensify competition among providers such as Darktrace, Palo Alto Networks, and emerging AI‑only players, each vying for community endorsement that can translate into market credibility and sales momentum.

Looking ahead, the community‑driven vote totals provide a barometer for where buying committees are directing spend, but they also expose potential volatility. As AI models evolve, vendors that secure early accolades may struggle to keep pace with novel attack techniques, prompting buyers to demand continuous performance validation beyond a single award cycle. Watch for follow‑up research from Cybersecurity Insiders on how well the awarded solutions actually close AI‑related gaps, and monitor whether the ten AI categories consolidate as standards emerge or remain fragmented, which will dictate the next wave of consolidation or specialization in the market.