Most SOC leaders know their teams are doing the best they can with what they have. They operate under a relentless volume of alerts, with limited resources and constant time pressure. The growing chasm between what should be investigated and what actually can be has become part of daily operations.

Hundreds, sometimes thousands of alerts pop up every day, some of which matter while others don’t, but you can’t separate the wheat from the chaff without digging. Unfortunately, this takes time – a luxury that nobody has.

According to Prophet Security, a leading provider of AI SOC solutions, it’s no surprise then that the idea of an AI SOC analyst has suddenly shot from a buzzword to a critical solution. Not as a replacement or panacea, but rather as a practical teammate that lets people survive the endless workload the modern SOC throws at them.

The SOC Workload Is Brutal

But in truth, today’s SOCs are something of a jungle: with their cloud infrastructure, their endpoints, their SaaS applications, their IoT, their OT systems, and their AI agents that all spew out their own alerts. Each system spits them out in its own way, in its own language. Some matter and most don’t, but sorting through all these warnings in real time is all but impossible.

A single alert can take an hour to investigate thoroughly, and many don’t get looked at at all. It’s a question of time and math, not negligence. There are hundreds of alerts and only a small handful of analysts to review them. However, the ticking clock doesn’t care about human limits.

This workload takes an operational and physical toll. Analysts may turn off detection rules to survive in the environment. When they are exhausted, they may miss gathering context, and they become less rational in an environment where noise never quiets. This results in high turnover since it is difficult to avoid burnout.

Enter the AI SOC Analyst

The AI SOC analyst is not a robot in the corner making decisions, nor is it some sci-fi replacement. It’s a tool, a partner, a junior analyst that never sleeps, complains, or forgets a detail.

What it does is practical. It pulls evidence from multiple sources in seconds, correlates alerts across systems, highlights anomalies, and even offers preliminary reasoning, but it never makes the final call; people do that. The AI SOC analyst is there to make sure analysts aren’t drowning before they can get to the critical work.

AI SOC analysts can pinpoint alerts that humans might have completely missed amid the noise. It can’t replace the human value, but it can provide relief, clarity, and the ability to breathe.

What AI Actually Does

In simple terms, AI takes on evidence gathering, correlation, and initial reasoning, limiting time spent on manual triage and context stitching.

• Triage: AI sorts through alerts, prioritizes the ones that really need human attention, and filters out the background noise.
• Evidence gathering: It sifts through logs, endpoints, threat feeds, and third-party data, pulling all of this together automatically, so analysts don’t need to hop between consoles, or search frantically for what they need. 
• Preliminary reasoning:  AI is also able to suggest why alerts might be linked or which ones are worth escalating. In most instances, this is more than enough to guide the analyst to the next step.

It seems simple, boring even, but it’s the kind of stuff that people don’t want to do anyway. But if it is not done, threats will overwhelm the business. 

Assistant vs Copilot

People bandy terms like “assistant” and “copilot” around, thinking they are synonymous. They are not, and getting this right is important. So, what’s the difference between an AI assistant, copilot, and replacement?

• An Assistant: Performs discrete tasks such as pulling evidence or correlating logs. These can be thought of as junior analysts who never tire.
• A Copilot: Stays shoulder to shoulder with humans, recommends next actions, points out relevant context, and even occasionally nudges them in a certain direction, such as checking one alert before another.

None of these is ever a substitute for the other. Giving full decision-making capabilities to any AI technology would be dangerous and may harm the business. Each alarm presents risks, both operational and legal, that require human intervention and decision-making.

Why Replacement Is the Wrong Question

Why is replacement the wrong framing for most SOCs?  People often make the mistake of thinking that AI is there to replace SOC analysts, but nothing could be further from the truth. AI is about augmenting people and enabling them to focus and perform in an environment that’s been a step ahead of them for years.

Because the right question is: “How can AI reduce workload, cognitive strain, and operational risk without compromising human judgment? This is where the true value lies: Faster investigations, more alerts triaged, and focused analysts. AI SOC analysts allow teams to scale without endless hiring.

Humans Still Matter

Even with AI doing the heavy lifting, people cannot be replaced. Analysts do something the machines cannot. They interpret complex threats, weigh business context, manage compliance nuances, and make judgment calls that AI is not able to. Yes, AI can triage and correlate, but it doesn’t understand the contracts, customer relationships, or the strange little patterns that indicate that something isn’t quite right. 

When AI handles mundane grunt work, humans get to do what they do best: think, decide, and act. They can exercise their judgement built on years of experience and investigate high-priority alerts. They can mentor junior staff, and tune detection rules. They can feel competent instead of overwhelmed with fatigue, which meaningfully reduces cognitive and operational strain.

Redefining Productivity and Scale

Let’s look at what could happen when humans and AI work together in the SOC.

• Investigations happen infinitely faster. There is less hopping between consoles, and manual triage is pared to the bone. 
• Far fewer alerts get ignored, as AI is able to highlight the ones that truly matter.
• Burnout becomes a thing of the past because analysts aren’t trapped in endless loops of low-value work.
• Teams are able to scale without having to add to their headcount. Many times the alerts can be handled without having many times the people. 

This all works because the AI is explainable. Analysts can see why an alert is highlighted, how the AI connected the dots, and also the reasoning it used. It’s this transparency that turns AI from a “black box” into a trusted teammate.

The Right Way to Frame It

How does Prophet Security position AI SOC analysts? It’s simple. AI should never be sold as a replacement, but framed as a partner.  Prophet Security’s AI SOC analysts lighten cognitive load, triage mountains of alerts, and ensure the right ones are investigated by a human expert. 

People always make the final call. They bring their judgment, accountability, and context. AI simply makes sure they are able to do that effectively without being swamped by the volume of alerts that are the reality in today’s SOCs.

The result is a more robust security all around. Teams can scale without adding human resources, stress is minimized, and valuable skills can finally focus on the work that actually matters.

Let’s face it, SOC workloads are not getting lighter anytime soon. Threats won’t slow down, and analysts won’t suddenly find themselves with empty hours to fill.   

AI SOC analysts aren’t futuristic replacements; they’re practical teammates that absorb the repetitive, high-volume tasks. People still make decisions, assess risk, and interpret context. But with AI handling the low-value, repetitive work, analysts can finally breathe.

About the author:
Kirsten Doyle has been in the technology journalism and editing space for nearly 24 years, during which time she has developed a great love for all aspects of technology, as well as words themselves. Her experience spans B2B tech, with a lot of focus on cybersecurity, cloud, enterprise, digital transformation, and data centre. Her specialties are in news, thought leadership, features, white papers, and PR writing, and she is an experienced editor for both print and online publications. She is also a regular writer at Bora.