Authors - Moses Moyo, Hanifa Abdullah Abstract - This scoping review was conducted to have an overview of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) influenced cybersecurity posture in South African small and medium enterprises (SMES) utilizing cloud computing technologies. The study extract 57 articles from six electronic databases. After rigorous screen, only eighteen studies were eligible for analysis. Of the eighteen remaining studies, eight were empirical and ten desktops. A qualitative thematic approach was used to extract relevant data from the study to understand the current state of cyberse-curity in SMEs. The study found that South African SMEs were using AI but did not harness opportunities it can offer in cybersecurity. The level of cybersecurity among the SMEs was very low due to lack of proper knowledge about threats that AI technologies could bring about if used by criminals. The study concluded SMEs were poorly prepared for AI use in general and in cybersecurity. The study was limited due to lack of literature related to the research questions. Therefore, it is recommended that a longitudinal empirical study be conducted with South African SMEs to have deeper understanding standing of how the adoption of AI is influencing their cybersecurity posture.
