Today, Security Operations Centers (SOCS) face unprecedented alert volumes and increasingly sophisticated threats. Triaging and investigating these alerts is expensive, tedious, and increases analyst fatigue, burnout and wear. While artificial intelligence has emerged as a go-to solution, the term “AI” often blurs important distinctions. Not all AI is built equally, especially in SOCs. While many existing solutions are assistant-based and require constant human input, new waves of autonomous agent AI could fundamentally translate security operations.
This article examines agent AI (also known as agent security) and explains the operational and economic impacts on modern SOCs in contrast to traditional assistant-based AI (commonly known as copilots). It also explores practical considerations for security leaders who evaluate agent AI solutions.
Agent AI vs. Assistant AI (aka Copilots): clarify the difference
Agent AI is defined by autonomy. Unlike traditional AI tools that act as powerful assistants, a pulsating AI systems independently recognize perception, planning, investigation, and conclusions. In the context of SOC operations, Agent AI is very similar to a skilled Tier-1 analyst, autonomously using industry best practices, triage alerts, thorough investigation of cases, and provide practical results with minimal human surveillance.
In contrast, assistant AI solutions are essentially smart tools waiting for human guidance. For example, security co-pilots can suggest insights about alerts and answer analysts, but will not actively investigate without explicit instructions. Every decision, action, or conclusion must first pass through a human analyst.
Consider a scenario that includes potential malware.
- Assistant you have Wait for an analyst prompt, then respond to a specific query and leave a human with a search decision.
- Agent AIConversely, it analyzes logs, correlates events, actively launches and completes full investigations that may contain threats, and provides detailed reports ready for human reviews.
The key distinctions here are initiative and autonomy. Agent AI is an autonomous member of your security team, not another SOC automation tool like Soars. Unlike traditional surges and hyperautomation tools, you don’t need playbooks or scripted workflows. It investigates and investigates real-time, triaged, and research studies without mapping all movements.
How Agent AI converts SECOPS and improves SOC economics
Agent AI, also known as AI SOC Analyst, transforms the core of security operations by automating the most time-consuming and massive tasks in SOC: triage and investigation. Not only does it accelerate your existing workflow, it’s scalable, consistent and cost-effective.
Large Instant Triage
Agent AI evaluates all alerts when it arrives around the clock. Triage based on not only severity labels but actual indicators of risk reduces residence time and raises the right threat faster than a human team.
Deep and consistent research
Unlike basic enrichment and playbook automation, Agent AI conducts structured research following a line of questions pursued by experienced analysts. All alerts undergo the same level of scrutiny, regardless of priorities, and remove the need to select speed and depth.
Less gaps and better prioritization
Traditional SOCs often ignore low priority alerts due to time constraints. Agent AI closes these gaps by examining everything based on actual risks and examining ranking results. As a result, prioritization is better and there are fewer threats that have missed them.
Operational consistency even under pressure
With no fatigue or bandwidth limitations, Agent AI maintains quality during storms of vigilance and high pressure moments. It helps eliminate triage shortcuts and avoid expensive monitoring regardless of volume.
More Focus, Burnout
By offloading repeated triages and initial investigations (particularly related to removing floods of benign alerts from human analyst queues), Agent AI releases analysts and focuses on high-value tasks such as complex investigations and threat hunting. This reduces burnout and improves team retention. This is a key factor in a competitive market, with a sustained lack of skills.
Reduce costs, more capacity
Agent AI increases alert coverage and investigation speed without putting pressure on already growing teams. This will help organizations expand their security operations and add capabilities in the face of an ongoing lack of cybersecurity skills.
Improved results, measurable ROI
By thoroughly and consistently investigating all alerts, Agent AI improves key metrics such as residence time and average survey time (MTTI). Faster detection and deeper investigation reduce risk exposure and reduce the financial and reputational impact of violations.
SOC’s power multiplier
Agent AI replaces analysts and amplifies them. It helps your team scale efficiently, operate more effectively, and achieve better results with fewer resources. Results: Stronger security and healthier revenue.
Important considerations for evaluating agent AI in SOC
Not all agent solutions are equal. Security leaders should evaluate solutions based on:
- Transparency and explainability: The solution clearly documents how decisions are made, ensuring analysts and auditors can confidently verify the results.
- Accuracy and depth of investigation: High accuracy and thorough multidimensional investigation across all relevant data sources is essential.
- Seamless integration: Solutions should easily connect to existing tools, fit into established workflows, and minimize disruption.
- Customization and adaptability: Learn and look for AI solutions that can adapt to your own security context.
- Impact and ROI: Measure the impact of AI using key SOC metrics that are important to your business. Ultimately, you need an agent AI tool from SOC that improves business performance (i.e. reduces risk and reduces costs), and the metrics you track must be in line with it.
How Prophet Security Redefines Alert Triage: Autonomous but Human-Driven Triage
The introduction of Agent AI represents the fundamental evolution of SOC teams, not an alternative to human analysts, but an augmentation that allows for the best performance. As organizations evaluate this transformational technology, selecting transparent, accurate and adaptive solutions ensures that SOCs remain effective, efficient and human-centric.
By autonomously handling regular research, Agent AI enables human analysts to focus on more valuable tasks, transforming SOCs from reactive to aggressively and accurately. Adopting this evolution is positioned to keep security teams resilient to tomorrow’s advanced threats.
Prophet security exemplifies this evolution by automating alert triage and investigation with extraordinary speed and accuracy. Prophet AI with AI agents eliminates repetitive manual tasks, reduces analyst burnout and significantly improves security outcomes. Access the security of Prophets today, request demonstrations and see firsthand how Prophet AI enhances SOC operations.
