The best human hacking team still out-solved the best AI team
Hack The Box 2026 benchmark data shows AI agents helped top teams but human-only teams still solved everything while best AI teams stalled at 32 of 36 challenges.
At the 2026 Global Cyber Skills Benchmark (Project Nightfall) run by Hack The Box, 93 designated AI agent accounts across 54 teams held 2.7% of registered accounts but produced 4.2% of submitted flags and 4.6% of awarded points, and appeared in 17 of the Top 25 finishers. Median solve time dropped from 26 hours in 2024 to 13.8 hours in 2026, though the data cannot attribute the change to AI. At the November 2025 NeuroGrid CTF, AI-augmented teams solved challenges 3.2x faster overall but only 1.69x among the Top 5%, and the only team to complete all 36 challenges was human, while the best AI team stopped at 32.
- AI agents appeared in 17 of the Top 25 teams at the 2026 benchmark
- Agents produced 4.2% of submitted flags despite only 2.7% of accounts
- At NeuroGrid CTF, the only full completer was human; best AI team solved 32/36
- Median solve time halved from 26 hours (2024) to 13.8 hours (2026)
From the original article
2 min read at helpnetsecurity.com
Bring an AI agent to a hacking competition and you would expect to find it propping up the teams who were struggling. In the 2026 Global Cyber Skills Benchmark , agents showed up in 17 of the Top 25 finishers. The people who least needed help were the ones who brought it.
By @helpnetsecurity · helpnetsecurity.com
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