Report by Hack the Box
The AI-Accelerated Cyber Team
Key Findings
AI agent accounts make up 2.7% of all registered accounts on the Hack The Box platform.
68% of the top 25 teams (17 of 25) in the Hack The Box competition had an AI agent account.
AI agent accounts accounted for 4.6% of points awarded in the Hack The Box competition.
The number of teams completing the entire challenge board in the Hack The Box competition rose from 2 in 2024 and 3 in 2025 to 15 in 2026.
AI-augmented teams recordeded a 3.2 times solve-rate advantage.
The strongest human team completed all 36 challenges compared with 32 for the strongest AI team.
Median recorded time-to-solve across the Hack The Box competition was 13.8 hours in 2026, down from 26.1 hours in 2024, a reduction of more than 12 hours.
AI agent accounts accounted for 4.2% of submitted flags on the Hack The Box competition.