Presented by Splunk, a Cisco CompanyAs AI rapidly evolves from a theoretical promise to an operational reality, CISOs and CIOs face a fundamental challenge: how to harness AI’s transformative potential while maintaining the human oversight and strategic thinking that security demands. The rise of agentic AI is reshaping security operations, but success requires balancing automation with accountability.The efficiency paradox: Automation without abdicationThe pressure to adopt AI is intense. Organizations are being pushed to reduce headcount or redirect resources toward AI-driven initiatives, often without fully understanding what that transformation entails. The promise is compelling: AI can reduce investigation times from 60 minutes to just 5 minutes, potentially delivering 10x productivity improvements for security analysts.However, the critical question isn’t whether AI can automate tasks — it’s which tasks should be automated and where human judgment remains irreplaceable. The answer lies in understanding that AI excels at accelerating investigative workflows, but remediation and response actions still require human validation. Taking a system offline or quarantining an endpoint can have massive business impact. An AI making that call autonomously could inadvertently cause the very disruption it’s meant to prevent.The goal isn’t to replace security analysts but to free them for higher-value work. With routine alert triage automated, analysts can focus on red team/blue team exercises, collaborate with engineering teams on remediation, and engage in proactive threat hunting. There’s no shortage of security problems to solve — there’s a shortage of security experts to address them strategically.The trust deficit: Showing your workWhile confidence in AI’s ability to improve efficiency is high, skepticism about the quality of AI-driven decis …
