Can technology see the future? No, but it can help cybersecurity experts predict what’s coming next. The antivirus software on your computer and phone work by scanning for threats. Think of the list of viruses and malware we know about as a “Most Wanted” list. The software sees when these already identified malicious files exist on your device. That’s where the AI comes in. Rather than having programmers spend hours combing through millions of files, they trained software. The artificial intelligence sorts through malware files searching for patterns. The goal is two-fold. Tech professionals want to find out what is next in cyber attacks. If they understand what’s on the horizon, they can build preventative measures. They also want to be able to find the criminals launching the attacks and stop them.

The problem facing companies are false-positives. Some AI systems aren’t as refined as they should be. That means they flag non-dangerous programs as threats. These false positives take up valuable investigation time and resources. However, this is still less time-consuming than manually searching for code similarities.

The good news is you can protect your devices even without an I.T. team. There are many free and paid protection options available for download. What you need may depend upon your device. Avast or Bitdefender will protect your PC or Android smartphone. Avast or Sophos Home Premium will protect your Mac computer. Avira or McAfee will protect your iPhone or iPad.