Data Report · RedactSure Research
Chris Sowa · Founder, RedactSure
Published
Last updated
Which AI Security Searches Are Growing Fastest?
US searches for prompt injection grew about 13 times in less than a year, and searches for AI controls, AI oversight and AI accountability grew faster than searches for AI governance. AI security is still a small search: about 4 for every 100 searches for ChatGPT. Searches for AI compliance grew slowest.
About 13 times. That is how much US Google searches for "prompt injection" grew between summer 2025 and spring 2026, the fastest of 27 AI risk and governance terms RedactSure measured in Google Trends. Searches for AI controls, AI oversight, AI accountability and AI agent security all grew faster than searches for AI governance, while searches for AI compliance and AI policy grew slower. The volume is still light: in spring 2026 there were about 4 searches for "ai security" for every 100 searches for "chatgpt." The interest is small, but it is moving from AI policy to how AI is controlled.
Key findings
- US searches for "prompt injection" grew about 13 times between summer 2025 and spring 2026, from about a seventh of searches for "ai governance" to more than half. Leaving out a peak in May and June 2026, they still grew about 5 times (Google, 2026).
- Searches for "ai oversight" grew about 5.6 times, "ai controls" about 4.4 times, "ai accountability" about 4.2 times and "ai agent security" about 4.0 times, all faster than "ai governance" at about 3.6 times (Google, 2026).
- Searches for "ai compliance" grew slowest of the terms large enough to measure, about 1.7 times, followed by "ai data security" at about 2.1 times and "ai policy" at about 2.7 times (Google, 2026).
- AI security is still a light search: in spring 2026, US searches for "ai security" ran at about 4 for every 100 searches for "chatgpt" (Google, 2026).
- 15 of the 27 terms were too small to measure growth, including every industry and regulation term tested and the solution terms "ai tokenization," "ai audit trail," "human in the loop ai" and "data loss prevention ai" (Google, 2026).
Which terms grew fastest?
| Search term | Reads as | Growth, summer 2025 to spring 2026 | Size vs. "ai governance," spring 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| prompt injection | Threat to agents | 12.7 times | 54% |
| ai oversight | Control | 5.6 times | 18% |
| ai controls | Control | 4.4 times | 50% |
| ai accountability | Control | 4.2 times | 15% |
| ai agent security | Threat to agents | 4.0 times | 23% |
| ai governance | Policy (anchor) | 3.6 times | 100% |
| mcp security | Threat to agents | 3.5 times | 17% |
| shadow ai | Concern | 3.3 times | 31% |
| ai data privacy | Concern | 3.0 times | 40% |
| ai risk management | Policy | 2.9 times | 51% |
| ai policy | Policy | 2.7 times | 312% |
| ai data security | Concern | 2.1 times | 52% |
| ai compliance | Policy | 1.7 times | 92% |
Every term grew. The terms about controlling AI and about attacks on agents grew fastest; the policy, compliance and data security terms grew slowest. "AI policy" is the largest term in the set, about three times the size of "ai governance," and much of it follows news about government AI policy rather than enterprise buying. "AI controls" includes searches such as "who controls AI," so part of its growth is public curiosity as well as buyers.
Which terms are still too small to measure?
| Search term | Size vs. "ai governance," spring 2026 |
|---|---|
| agentic ai security | 8% |
| ai agent risks | 6% |
| ai tokenization | 6% |
| human in the loop ai | 5% |
| ai insurance risks | 4% |
| ai data leak | 4% |
| ai audit trail | 4% |
| ai student privacy | 3% |
| ai banking security | 3% |
| ai agent permissions | 2% |
| ai patient privacy | 2% |
| data loss prevention ai | 1% |
| ai hipaa risk | 1% |
| ai gdpr risk | 1% |
| ai ferpa risk | under 1% |
People search for the problem in general words: governance, privacy, prompt injection, shadow AI. Few search for it in their own industry's words, and few search for the solutions by name. Searches about AI privacy in healthcare, schools, insurance and banking were each under 5% of searches for AI governance, and searches pairing AI risk with HIPAA, GDPR or FERPA were each about 1% or less.
How big is AI security as a search?
| Search term | Searches for every 100 searches for "chatgpt," spring 2026 |
|---|---|
| ai agent | about 5.5 |
| ai security | about 4.4 |
| ai governance | about 1.4 |
| prompt injection | about 1.1 |
AI security is a small search next to AI itself. It has grown from almost nothing: before mid-2025, "ai security" and "ai agent" each ran at less than 1 for every 100 searches for "chatgpt."
What do the numbers mean for security and risk leaders?
Searches have shifted from AI policy toward the controls around AI and the attacks agents face. Prompt injection, the attack that turns a web page or document into instructions an agent follows, grew faster than any other term. Searches for oversight and controls grew faster than searches for governance.
The volume is still light, which means most organizations are adopting AI before they search for how to control it. Controls that depend on each user asking the right question will not keep up. The controls that hold work in the workflow itself: the model receives only what the task needs, a named person approves each consequential action, and every step is recorded.
Methodology and limitations
The data comes from Google Trends, United States, web search, all categories, past five years, downloaded October 28, 2026. Nine comparisons of up to five search terms were run, each entered as a search term rather than a topic. "AI governance" appears in every comparison as the anchor, so every term can be measured against it. A separate comparison measured "ai agent," "ai security," "ai governance" and "prompt injection" against "chatgpt."
Google Trends reports relative interest on a 0 to 100 scale, not search counts. In two single weeks, the weeks of June 8, 2025 and July 12, 2026, every small AI term in the data shifted together, up in 2025 and down in 2026, while searches for "chatgpt" did not. Both look like changes in how Google processes the data rather than changes in interest, so growth compares the 11 weeks from June 8 to August 17, 2025 with the 14 weeks from April 5 to July 5, 2026, which both sit between those two changes. Size is the average of each term against "ai governance" in the 2026 weeks. Growth is reported only for terms averaging at least 10% of "ai governance" in 2026. Values below 1 were counted as 0.5.
Search interest is not concern, and a search can come from a student, a developer, a journalist or a buyer. "Prompt injection" peaked in late May and June 2026 for reasons the data does not show; the 5 times figure leaves that peak out by comparing January to April 2026. Trends samples searches, so a second download can differ slightly. The figures describe US web searches only.
Frequently asked questions
Are people searching more about AI security?
Yes. Every AI risk and governance term RedactSure measured in Google Trends grew between summer 2025 and spring 2026, most of them about 3 to 6 times. Prompt injection grew fastest, about 13 times. AI security is still a small search, about 4 for every 100 searches for ChatGPT in spring 2026.
Which AI security term is growing fastest?
Prompt injection, about 13 times between summer 2025 and spring 2026 in US Google searches, and about 5 times leaving out a peak in May and June 2026. Among the larger terms, AI oversight, AI controls, AI accountability and AI agent security also grew faster than AI governance.
Is AI governance still growing?
Yes, about 3.6 times over the same period, and it remains one of the largest terms. It grew more slowly than the terms about controls and agent threats, and faster than AI compliance and AI policy.
How RedactSure Puts the Controls in the Workflow
The fastest-growing searches are about prompt injection and AI controls. RedactSure answers both without asking each user to search for them first.
The environment that enforces this is built by RedactSure, an AI agent controls, governance and data protection company.
Before: an agent working a customer record reads the account number on the screen, and an injected instruction on a web page tells it to send what it read. Inside the governed environment: render-layer tokenization shows the agent ACCT_001 instead of the number, so an injected instruction can get only tokens, and a named person approves every consequential action under Supervised Delegation. Every screen the agent saw, every action and every approval lands in the AI Control Record.
RedactSure is deploying now with enterprise and government customers.
Everyone else controls where data can go. RedactSure controls what the AI can see.
See it on your own workflow
The controls are easiest to set before the searches catch up. Bring one agent workflow and we will show, with test values, what the agent reads and who signs off on each action. Book a demo