From Alert Fatigue to Actionable Intelligence: How AI Is Reshaping the SOC

The security operations center (SOC) is at a breaking point. Analyst burnout has long been a critical risk, but the problem is only getting worse. In fact, 73% of organizations recently surveyed by Cybersecurity Insiders and Gurucul say they’re suffering from burnout and persistent staffing shortages. Alert volumes are escalating, threats are proliferating, and analysts are stuck using legacy and fragmented tools.

It is simply too much for humans alone to keep up with, which means AI is rapidly shifting from a nice-to-have to a strategic necessity.

The crisis in today’s SOCs

While the burnout rate in the SOC is well-documented, the situation hasn’t improved yet, so it can’t be said enough: analysts are at the end of their rope. They’re grappling with ever-worsening challenges that include:

• Alert fatigue – Not only are there too many alerts, but false positives are increasing, and that makes it difficult and inefficient to respond to the deluge effectively. In fact, according to the survey mentioned above, 88% of cybersecurity leaders said alert volume has increased; 46% report a spike of over 25% in the past year.
• New and evolving threats – The threat landscape is always changing, and AI is equipping bad actors with new tools that enable them to pull off more threats, faster. Credential abuse and insider risks add further complexity.
• Lack of visibility and tooling gaps – The report found that 96% of companies admit to having significant blind spots. Cloud infrastructure (74%) and identity and access behavior (67%) are the top concerns.
• Skills gap and turnover – The cybersecurity skills gap continues to be a challenge for the industry overall, and high burnout rates mean a high turnover rate. You need to train level 2 (L2) and higher analysts up through the system, but if they’re burning out at level 1 (L1), that can’t happen. It takes a great deal of time and effort to find, hire, onboard, train, and retain employees, as well as maintain a bench of replacement talent, just to keep up with turnover.

 Bringing AI to the table

AI and automation offer huge potential for the SOC. It’s no wonder that 81% of organizations in the above-noted survey said they were deploying or piloting AI tools for the SOC. And those using these tools to their full potential are experiencing major results: 60% of adopters said they’ve seen a 25% (or more) reduction in investigation times, and 21% see reductions greater than 50%.

AI transforms alert fatigue into actionable intelligence by helping with:

• Noise reduction – With AI in the SOC, organizations gain AI-driven correlation and prioritization
• Faster investigations – AI and automation help with triage, gathering context and response
• Analyst empowerment – Analysts’ time is freed up to focus on higher-value activities

The execution gap

AI offers huge potential for improving the SOC, but here’s the problem: Just 31% of respondents are using these tools across core detection and response workflows. While interest is high, there’s an execution gap.

There are roadblocks to the full operationalization of AI. One of them is integration challenges. Legacy infrastructure and fragmented tooling can also make it difficult to adopt new technologies. Another concern is transparency and explainability; how do you understand why decisions are being made by AI?

The second roadblock centers on the trust analysts need to have in the systems they’re meant to depend on. Trust is an essential requirement for AI maturity. Only 9% of survey participants reported being “very confident” in the alerts and recommendations generated by AI. Another 33% “mostly trust” AI results but want to review them, and 41% think AI is helpful overall but still needs ongoing validation.

The third roadblock is change management. Organizations are struggling with the ongoing skills gap and new training needs that can make it hard to bring on new technology and use AI to its full potential. There’s also cultural resistance; a mentality of “Well, we’ve always done it this way, so why change?”

Overcoming the roadblocks for SOC success

Start with pilot projects that deliver a quick return on investment.  Correlate identity and behavior, not just events. Because of visibility gaps in identity and access behaviors, xx% of respondents, according to the aforementioned survey, that are often exploited, AI platforms need to do more than log analysis to determine which people and devices are performing actions across systems. Behavioral context of this kind is crucial for finding identity-driven, sophisticated threats.

Clearing the barriers to SOC success requires several steps. First, prioritize explainable AI for transparency and trust. Explainable, transparent AI triage and investigations with context and detailed remediation steps help L1 analysts learn quickly, perform at a higher level and quickly uplevel skills.

Second, upskill analysts for higher-value threat hunting and strategic initiatives (like Zero Trust). AI is not meant to replace humans; it’s supposed to augment them. That’s an important distinction to understand and is key to succeeding with AI in the SOC. Keep a human in the loop until trust is established, then let AI handle mundane, low-impact security tasks and escalate the rest.

Third, treat AI as a core SOC strategy, not a bolt-on or an afterthought, but part of a well-thought-out, comprehensive approach.

It’s time to embrace AI in the SOC

SOCs face a mounting crisis as alert volume surges, analyst burnout worsens and identity-based threats proliferate. Legacy defenses can’t keep pace with threats that imitate legitimate behavior and operate patiently behind the scenes, working “low and slow.” AI empowers SOC teams to reduce alert fatigue, overcome data overload, and help investigate based on context. You need to find your blind spots before a breach occurs, not during or after. Evaluate the capabilities, current challenges, and strategic vision of your SOC and identify where AI can help today – and where it can contribute to creating a more resilient security stance in the long term.