Digital risk isn’t getting simpler – and Aaron Belair is cutting through the noise

If the digital risk landscape feels like it’s shifting faster than ever, you’re not imagining it. A web of interconnected exposures is evolving in real time. Some are familiar, like ransomware. Others, such as AI-enabled fraud and third-party vulnerabilities, are changing how risk shows up.

For many organizations, the challenge is to stay prepared when the ground keeps moving. It’s gaining attention as the industry heads into InsuranceFest this summer, where Aaron Belair, President of Technology, North America at Intact Insurance Specialty Solutions, will lead tabletop sessions examining how these risks are playing out.

Where digital risk is concentrating today

One of the clearest pressure points today is third-party risk. Vendors and platforms keep your business running, but each connection introduces exposure, often outside your control. When a vendor has access to your systems or data, its vulnerability becomes yours.

Managing that exposure at scale remains difficult. Organizations can tighten internal controls, but visibility across the ecosystem is hard to achieve—and maintain. When something goes wrong, the impact lands with you.

That lack of visibility is shaping how cybercrime evolves. Deepfake-enabled fraud reflects the shift, with attackers mimicking executive voices or generating messages prompting employees to transfer funds or share sensitive information. These scenarios are increasingly difficult to detect.

Ransomware is evolving in similar ways. Whether activity rises or falls matters less than its volatility. Threat actors adapt quickly, while new tools lower barriers to entry.

Taken together, these risks point to a broader issue: much of today’s digital infrastructure sits with a small number of providers, so a single disruption can ripple across organizations.

How AI is reshaping existing exposure

Those same dynamics accelerate with AI.

By increasing speed, scale, and realism, AI amplifies existing threats:

• Phishing becomes more targeted: Highly personalized messages resembling real contacts
• Fraud becomes more convincing: Deepfake audio and video enable credible impersonation
• Attribution grows more complex: Tracing origin or responsibility becomes harder

These shifts are less about entirely new threats and more about how familiar ones are evolving.

There’s also a growing privacy dimension. Where attention once centered on large-scale breaches, misuse of identity—images, voices, and likenesses—now demands similar focus.

That expands the risk footprint beyond systems to the people connected to them.

At the same time, some louder AI narratives can distract from more immediate concerns. The bigger issue is how quickly AI is being embedded across vendors, workflows, and customer interactions, in many cases faster than governance can keep pace.

Preparation is expanding beyond coverage

As these risks expand, organizations are rethinking how they prepare.

A more resilient approach starts with tighter oversight of vendors: who you work with, how access is granted, and what safeguards are in place. When third-party risk is a blind spot, visibility becomes critical.

Insurers are also leaning on partnerships, working with specialized providers to deliver monitoring, detection, and response support.

Even with better tools, human decisions remain central. As fraud becomes more sophisticated, everyday judgment carries more weight—and small errors can have outsized consequences.

All of this reflects a broader shift in how risk is defined. Alongside confidentiality, integrity, and availability, safety is gaining ground, focusing on how digital systems affect individuals.

Why coverage is evolving unevenly

As risk evolves, coverage moves alongside it, but not always at the same speed.

There’s innovation, but also hesitation. AI introduces uncertainty that some carriers are still working through, leading to broader exclusions or more conservative underwriting.

Market dynamics shape how coverage responds. In a competitive environment, insurers have limited leverage, while brokers influence how that plays out.

So while the market continues to adapt, it doesn’t always keep pace with how quickly exposures are changing.

What recent incidents are showing

Recent incidents show how these risks come together in practice.

Organizations rarely operate in isolation. A disruption at a single vendor can expose multiple clients, linking risks in ways that may not be visible until something goes wrong.

Human behavior adds another layer. A single action like clicking a link, approving a request, trusting a message, can still trigger significant loss.

Visibility also has limits. Even developers don’t fully understand how systems behave, adding uncertainty to how risk is assessed.

Keeping pace as the landscape continues to shift

In this environment, trying to predict every emerging threat isn’t realistic. The focus shifts to alignment—how your controls, vendors, and coverage work together.

A few considerations can help ground that effort:

• Are your vendors managed with the same rigor as your internal systems?
• Do your controls reflect how threats are operating today?
• Does your coverage align with where your exposure is growing?

These are the kinds of questions Belair is aiming to bring to the forefront in Santa Monica next month.

In a landscape that keeps shifting, resilience comes down to how quickly and consistently you can adapt as new risks take shape.