SOC Analysts - Reimagining Their Role Using AI

SOC Analysts – Reimagining their role using AI. The job of a SOC analyst has never been easy. Faced with an overwhelming flood of daily alerts, analysts (and sometimes IT teams who are doubling as SecOps) must try and triage thousands of security alerts—often false positives—just to identify a handful of real threats. This relentless, 24/7 work leads to alert fatigue, desensitization, and increased risk of missing critical security incidents. Studies show that 70% of SOC analysts experience severe stress, and 65% consider leaving their jobs within a year. This makes retention a major challenge for security teams, especially in light of the existing shortage of skilled security analysts.

On the operational side, analysts spend more time on repetitive, manual tasks like investigating alerts, and resolving and documenting incidents than they do on proactive security measures. Security teams struggle with configuring and maintaining SOAR playbooks as the cyber landscape rapidly changes. To top this all off, tool overload and siloed data force analysts to navigate disconnected security platforms, creating not only inconvenience, but more critically, missed correlations between events that might have helped identify true positives.

AI-Powered Threat Actors – Yikes!#

The above is compounded by the fact that threat actors are leveraging AI to power their cybercrime. By processing vast amounts of data rapidly, AI enables them to launch more effective, adaptive, and difficult-to-detect attacks at scale. AI tools generate highly convincing phishing emails, deepfake content, and social engineering scripts, making deception much easier even for inexperienced attackers. They can also use AI to write sophisticated malware, reverse engineer security mechanisms and automate vulnerability discovery by analyzing large codebases for exploitable flaws. Additionally, AI-driven chatbots impersonate real users, conduct large-scale fraud, and for newbies, provide step-by-step cybercrime guidance.

According to a 2024 CrowdStrike report, attackers have reduced the average breakout time for successful intrusions from 79 minutes to 62 minutes, with the fastest known breakout time being just two minutes and seven seconds. Even with the best detection tooling and dozens of analysts available (a dream scenario) the sheer volume and velocity of today’s cyberattacks still requires SOC teams to move faster than ever and somehow manually review and triage the insane amount of alerts being generated. This has been literally a mission impossible. But not anymore.

The Modern SOC Strikes Back – A Perfect Blend of AI and Human-in-the-Loop#

If you are a SOC analyst or a CISO, you know I was not exaggerating on how dire the situation is. But the tide is turning. New AI tooling for SOCs will enable human teams to process any type and any volume of security alerts, allowing them to focus on handling real threats in record time. Here’s a glimpse of what some early adopters are experiencing.

Automated Triage#

Many vendors are now offering automated triage of security alerts which significantly reduces the number of alerts that human analysts have to investigate. While multiple vendors offer automated triage for specific use cases such as phishing, endpoint, network and cloud (with the triage playbook created by human security professionals) the ideal scenario is for an AI-powered SOC analyst that can interpret any type of security alert from any sensor or defense system. This way, all security events, from the most common to the most obscure, can be fully triaged. Transparency plays a big role here as well, with the actual logic of the AI triage (down to each and every step taken) being readily available for a human analyst to review if desired.

Full Control Over Response to Real Threats #

While an AI-powered SOC platform generates an accurate response appropriate to the specific threat (providing similar value to a SOAR without all the configuration and maintenance headache), it’s important to have a human-in-the-loop to review the suggested remediation and the ability to accept, modify or immediately execute it.

ChatGPT (or DeepSeek) Joins the Team#

Leveraging generative AI allows SOC teams to research emerging threats, the latest attack methods and the best practices for combatting them. Tools like ChatGPT are incredible for rapidly ramping up on practically any topic, security included and will definitely make it easier for analysts to access and easily learn about relevant solutions in a timely manner.

Data Querying, Log Interpretation and Anomaly Detection#

SOC analysts no longer need to struggle with querying syntax. Instead, they can use natural language to find the data they need and when it comes to understanding the significance of a particular log or dataset, AI solutions can provide instant clarification. When analyzing an aggregate data set of thousands of logs, built-in anomaly detection aids in identifying unusual patterns that might warrant further investigation.

More Data for Data-Hungry AI. Without an Insane Bill. #

AI tools are data-hungry because they rely on vast amounts of information to learn patterns, make predictions, and improve their accuracy over time. However, traditional data storage can be very cost-prohibitive. Upcoming technologies have made it possible to rapidly query logs and other data from ultra-affordable cold storage such as AWS S3. This means that these AI-powered SOC platforms can rapidly access, process and interpret the vast amounts of data for them to automatically triage alerts. Likewise, for humans. As a CISO or VP Security you can now fully control your data without any vendor lock-in, while giving your analysts rapid querying capabilities and unlimited retention for compliance purposes.

Everything Will Just Move Faster #

In the last century, social interactions were far slower—if you wanted to connect with someone, you had to call their landline and hope they answered, send a letter and wait days for a response, or meet in person. Fast forward to 2024, and instant messaging, social media, and AI-driven communication have made interactions immediate and seamless. The same transformation is happening in security operations. Traditional SOCs rely on manual triage, lengthy investigations, and complex SOAR configurations, slowing down response times. But with AI-powered SOC solutions, analysts no longer have to sift through endless alerts or manually craft remediation steps. AI automates triage, validates real threats, and suggests precise remediation, drastically reducing workload and response times. AI is reshaping SOC operations—enabling faster, smarter, and more effective security at scale.

In summary, SOC analysts struggle with alert volumes, manual triage, and escalating cyber threats, leading to burnout and inefficiencies. Meanwhile, threat actors are leveraging AI to automate attacks, making rapid response more critical than ever. The good news is that the modern SOC is evolving with AI-powered triage, automated remediation, and natural language-driven data querying, allowing analysts to focus on real threats instead of tedious processes. With AI the SOC is becoming faster, smarter, and more scalable.