Why Has BT Joined Anthropic's Cybersecurity Initiative?

The telco industry has spent years building faster and more resilient networks.

Now it faces a different challenge: defending those networks against cyber threats that are becoming more sophisticated by the day.

That reality is behind BT’s decision to become the first UK company to join Anthropic’s Project Glasswing, a programme that gives critical infrastructure operators access to advanced AI tools designed to identify vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

The move gives BT access to Claude Mythos Preview, Anthropic’s frontier AI model, as the operator looks to strengthen cyber defences across its networks and customer services.

The announcement was made by BT CEO Allison Kirkby during the UK Government’s first ever AI Adoption Summit.

It was there that political and technology leaders gathered to discuss how AI can support economic growth and public services.

In her speech, which opened the summit, Allison highlighted the relationship between AI and telco infrastructure, arguing that advanced digital services depend on secure and resilient connectivity.

She said that “AI only works at scale when it is underpinned by future-ready networks that are secure, resilient and safe”.

Allison reiterated BT’s commitment “to working with Government to support the further development and deployment of sovereign British AI capability, so that the UK can be an AI maker and not just a taker”.

She also emphasised BT’s role as an “enabler of responsible adoption and a responsible adopter ourselves” in AI.

Protecting critical infrastructure

Project Glasswing was created to bring together operators responsible for essential services and infrastructure.

The initiative enables trusted organisations to use Anthropic’s AI systems to uncover security weaknesses and accelerate remediation efforts before attackers can take advantage.

The aligns with BT's role as a provider of communications infrastructure and managed security services across the UK.

BT says it now blocks around four million cyber-attacks across its networks every day, illustrating both the volume of malicious activity targeting digital infrastructure and the need for increasingly automated defences.

As cyber criminals adopt AI tools of their own, telco providers are under a looming pressure to modernise security operations and reduce the time it takes to identify and respond to threats.

AI’s expanding role in cyber defence

BT’s participation in Project Glasswing is the latest example of how operators are incorporating AI into cybersecurity strategies.

The company has already introduced AI-powered cybersecurity services for organisations of different sizes, including products aimed at small businesses.

More recently, BT announced a collaboration with Accenture focused on developing advanced AI-driven cyber operations capable of responding to threats at machine speed.

According to Jon James, CEO of BT Business, joining Anthropic’s initiative will help strengthen those capabilities further.

“AI is changing cyber security fast, and businesses need trusted partners who can help them stay one step ahead.

“By joining Project Glasswing, BT will strengthen its own cyber security capability to protect our networks, our customers and the wider UK.”

As operators position themselves as not only providers of digital infrastructure and cloud connectivity, but also security services, cyber resilience is becoming as important as network performance.

That is particularly true as governments place greater emphasis on protecting critical national infrastructure and ensuring that AI systems are deployed responsibly.

For telco providers, one of the biggest challenges is now ensuring that the networks supporting AI-driven economies remain secure, resilient and trusted.

By joining Project Glasswing, BT is placing itself closer to the development of emerging AI security tools while reinforcing the cyber protections that underpin its networks and services.