2026 SANS SOC Survey: A decade of cyber defense insights

While 79% of SOCs now use AI tools, only 36% have built them into a defined workflow.

That gap is where risk lives. When analysts reach for AI on their own, without governance or validation, the result is confident, well-formatted outputs that go unchallenged. The biggest AI risk in the SOC isn't a bad tool. It's an analyst who trusts one.

The 2026 SANS SOC Survey captures a decade of how security operations really evolve. The findings reflect an honest truth about what both security teams and leadership are feeling in the AI era, including:

• AI moves faster than governance ever could. Adoption has outrun integration, creating a new category of operational risk.
• Data strategy predicts tool satisfaction more than budget does. The best teams decide what they need before they buy.
• Meaningful work beats money. For the third year running, purpose and growth outrank compensation as the top retention drivers.

See the full report to gain insight into how the SOC is changing in real time.

Additional resources

• [Article] AI use for security analysts
• [Webinar] Unifying security operations with Elastic: From data ingestion to threat response
• [Article] The data gravity problem