AI Revolutionizes SOCs: Faster, Smarter Defense

The traditional Security Operations Center (SOC) model faces severe challenges, with teams inundated by an average of 10,000 alerts daily. Analyst burnout is rampant, exacerbated by legacy systems and escalating threat speeds, such as the 51-second breakout times documented in CrowdStrike's 2025 Global Threat Report. Attackers are increasingly using AI and identity-based techniques, necessitating machine-speed defenses.

Bounded autonomy is emerging as the solution, integrating AI agents for rapid triage and enrichment, while human analysts retain oversight for critical containment decisions. This division of labor leverages AI's speed for routine tasks and human intuition for complex scenarios. Graph-based detection, which visualizes network relationships, further enhances AI's ability to trace attack paths efficiently.

Companies like ServiceNow and Ivanti are embracing this agentic AI approach, expanding its application from SOCs to IT service management, with general availability expected later in 2026. This mirrors the challenges faced by service desks, offering continuous support without proportional headcount increases. Explicit governance boundaries are crucial for successful bounded autonomy, defining agent actions, human review triggers, and escalation paths.