Thoma Bravo’s Seth Boro warns of cybersecurity risks amid AI growth

Artificial intelligence is getting smarter, faster and more autonomous. According to Seth Boro, so are the risks. Boro, a Managing Partner at Thoma Bravo, told Bloomberg TV on October 19, 2026 that AI development depends on proper cybersecurity, especially for consumers. His central warning was that threats from “rogue agents” will persist as AI builds out. That message carries extra weight given where it came from. Thoma Bravo is one of the biggest investors in cybersecurity, and its portfolio has a direct financial stake in whether people trust AI enough to use it. Rogue agents and the new social engineering Boro’s main concern was rogue agents. In this context, that means AI systems that behave maliciously, whether they are built that way or turned to bad ends. Boro argued that these threats are not a passing phase. In his view, they will likely grow alongside AI deployment. More agents running in more places means more opportunities for something to go wrong. He also drew a comparison that anyone in security will recognize. Boro pointed to prompt engineering as a vulnerability similar to human social engineering. Social engineering is the classic con. A scammer calls an employe...