Article By Frank Bergman
Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has issued a chilling warning that criminals armed with powerful artificial intelligence (AI) are expected to unleash major cyberattacks, extortion schemes, financial disruption, and trigger widespread blackouts and shortages over the next year.
Gates warned that malicious actors are gaining access to the latest AI models without adequate safeguards, opening the door to increasingly sophisticated attacks on public utilities, businesses, and financial systems.
“When you have bad people, no safeguards, and then the latest models, that’s where, over the next year, primarily in the cyber area, we are going to have a lot of negative surprises,” Gates told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.
The warning comes as AI-enabled attacks are already surging, with cybersecurity researchers reporting an 89% increase in attacks by AI-enabled adversaries.
Criminals Could Use AI to Extort Businesses and Manipulate Markets
During the “State of the Union” interview, Gates said cybercrime offers attackers an established way to make money from AI-powered disruption.
“The front that we’ll probably see most dramatically in the next year is cyberattacks, because there, there’s a known business model where, you know, you threaten to do something and ask somebody to pay for that, or you create a disruption that changes something in the stock market or some betting thing that you go and do,” Gates said.
His warning extends beyond stolen information.
Criminals could threaten businesses into paying ransoms or deliberately disrupt systems to manipulate financial markets and betting outcomes.
CrowdStrike’s 2026 Global Threat Report found that attacks by AI-enabled adversaries increased 89% year over year in 2025.
The report also found that the average time criminals needed to move laterally through compromised networks had fallen to just 29 minutes.
That leaves defenders facing attackers who can spread through a breached network rapidly while exploiting increasingly powerful technology.
Gates Warns Governments Are Failing to Address Biological Danger
Tapper also pressed Gates over his warning that AI could help terrorists develop deadly biological weapons.
The host cited Gates’s assessment that the risk of a bioterrorist attack could become 50 times greater than that of a natural pandemic.
Asked whether government leaders were doing enough to prevent such an attack, Gates answered bluntly.
“Well, no, we’re not doing enough,” Gates said.
“The real danger right now is not the AI is [getting out of control].
“We need to work on that, but that’s years away in terms of the big impact that might have.”
Gates’s immediate concern is people weaponizing the technology.
Rather than waiting for a future rogue AI system, criminals and terrorists could exploit models already becoming available to carry out attacks.
WATCH:
Warning Fuels Push for Sweeping AI Regulation
Political strategist Oliver Libby responded by calling for government action while arguing that America must remain competitive in AI development.
“The great challenge both for innovators and governments in the coming months is to balance continued progress in AI with smart regulation,” Libby said.
“Leaders who can balance ensuring that America is not left behind, but that no American is left out, will win public trust.”
Libby also advocated federal and international standards, greater platform responsibility, and measures addressing AI-driven workforce disruption.
“Regulation should focus on federal and international standards, platform responsibility, cyber and deepfake penalties, child safety, and ensuring the participation of the population in the economic benefits of this powerful technological revolution — while starting to prepare our society for what could be profound workforce disruption,” Libby said.
Gates’s warning puts a much shorter timeline on the cyber threat, however.
He warns that, within the next year, criminals could use advanced AI to extort businesses and disrupt financial systems while governments remain unprepared for the wider dangers he described.
Be the first to comment