The AI Analyst Arrives: Turning Hype into Action
AI hype and horror stories are all over the news today. Since ChatGPT went live to the public in 2022, nearly every company now has an AI feature or two. But in cybersecurity, AI isn’t new; it’s the evolution of intelligence that’s long been shaping how we defend against modern threats. Where the conversation has failed is in its clarity. We need to move from buzzwords to business outcomes, showing provable advantages in every day SOC activities.
For years, AI in the SOC was more aspiration than reality. But as the independent research firm Software Analyst Cyber Research notes in its 2025 report, The Convergence of SIEMs and Data Lakes: Market Evolution, Key Players, and What’s Next,” the industry has reached an inflection point. 2025 marks the year AI becomes a true operational partner, not a concept.
“AI is moving from hype to utility. Copilots, natural language detections, and automated investigations are being built into SIEMs, lowering the barrier for detection engineering and reducing analyst fatigue.” - Software Analyst Cyber Research
AI That Thinks With You, Not For You
Artificial intelligence has existed in cybersecurity for decades, from pattern-matching antivirus engines to autonomous failover systems. Machine learning has powered user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA), helping teams identify anomalies at scale. And with the rise of large language models and natural language processing (NLP), analysts can now communicate directly with their data.
This is where Anomali leads, because AI isn’t an overlay. It’s a reasoning layer woven throughout the security lifecycle. From detection to investigation, agentic AI applies intelligence contextually, helping analysts understand not just what happened, but why, and what comes next.
From Queries to Conversations
Let’s look at how natural language transforms the analyst workflow. Where an analyst once had to learn multiple query languages — from SQL to Snort rules — Anomali’s Copilot bridges that technical gap. A new analyst can now type a simple request such as:
“Show me any endpoints that triggered alerts followed by new credential creation on the same device.”
Behind the scenes, the system translates that intent into the Anomali Query Language (AQL), instantly surfacing correlated results across the data lake. This is AI as an enabler.
Clarity at Machine Speed
Before copilots and threat graphs, analysts pieced together incidents manually across multiple spreadsheets and consoles. Now, Anomali’s ThreatStream AI workbench gives analysts a unified view of entities, relationships, and potential compromise paths. By turning fragmented signals into visual intelligence, it reduces investigation time and delivers the clarity needed to respond with confidence.
In addition, there are two more value drivers at play here: Clarity and communication. Not every skilled security analyst is a skilled business communicator. The Anomali Copilot generates business-ready threat bulletin summaries and recommendations, helping SOCs translate detection into executive understanding to bridge the gap between operations and outcomes.
The Human + AI Partnership
We believe strongly that all AI functionality from machine learning to NLP queries and AI-driven summaries can never replace the human investigator, but it can:
- Bring new analysts up to speed faster
- Eliminate manual triage bottlenecks
- Enrich investigations with context
- Accelerate decision-making with confidence
The SOC is Ready for Real Results from AI
AI is no longer an experiment; it’s a force multiplier across every element of your security stack. SOCs adopting it today are already realizing the gains of AI-driven reasoning and automation that reduces fatigue, improves precision, and enables anticipatory defense.
“The SIEM market is undergoing one of its most significant shifts in decades, driven by the rise of security data lakes, pipelines, and advanced analytics platforms.” - Software Analyst Cyber Research
Want to explore how analysts and AI are reshaping the modern SOC? The Software Analyst Cyber Research 2025 report, The Convergence of SIEMs and Data Lakes: Market Evolution, Key Players, and What’s Next, breaks down how AI copilots, decoupled architectures, and open data lakes are redefining visibility, speed, and cost control in security operations.
Download the full report to see how leaders like Anomali are helping organizations move from reactive detection to AI-powered, anticipatory defense.
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