Today marked our final full day at the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit, and while the week has been heavy on AI themes, today’s sessions cut through the noise. We moved beyond buzzwords and focused on what it really takes to operationalize AI in the SOC, how cybersecurity is becoming a business enabler, and how zero-trust isn’t just architecture, it’s a mindset shift.
So to wrap up day three, we’re giving you the three takeaways that stood out to us most.
Takeaway 1. AI in the SOC: Crawl, Walk, Run — but Measure from Day One.
You can’t automate your way to security maturity. The best session of the day emphasized that SOC automation is a phased journey: manual → semi-automated → AI-augmented → autonomous. And even in the most advanced SOCs, human oversight remains non-negotiable.
One stat that stuck with me: There will never be a fully autonomous SOC.
Why? Because context matters… And so does judgment. But what can be done is building co-pilot-style augmentation that trains analysts faster, streamlines decision-making, and gives your team time back to focus on complex work.
“Start measuring from the beginning, don’t wait until the day before you need to justify the tool.” – Kevin Schmidt
Success metrics evolve with each phase, but the lesson is universal: no metrics, no momentum.
Takeaway 2. Security Is Now a Business Enabler, Not a Roadblock.
Cybersecurity is finally stepping out of the silo, and into the boardroom. Rapid7’s session hammered home a point many security teams still struggle to message: cyber risk is business risk. And security leaders who can speak that language will drive change faster.
Two standout ideas:
- “Think business-first, risk-second.” You can’t secure what you don’t understand operationally.
- Public-private partnerships work best when built before the crisis. Engage early, not after the breach.
Cybersecurity success now depends as much on collaboration as it does on tools. It’s not just about hardening your systems, it’s about earning trust, internally and externally.
Takeway 3. Zero Trust Is the Strategy, Not Just the Tech Stack.
Zscaler’s session brought the threat landscape back into focus. AI isn’t just helping defenders, it’s supercharging attackers. From phishing to automated reconnaissance, threat actors are now using LLMs just as effectively as the SOC is.
So what works?
- Adopt Zero Trust as a strategy: not just a product suite
- Decrypt traffic for visibility: especially with 95% of internet traffic now encrypted
- Use AI to detect AI: generative decoys are becoming real-time detection tools
- Centralize your vulnerability response: fragmented response equals missed exposure
“You can’t protect what you can’t see. And today, most of what’s dangerous is encrypted.”
Zero Trust isn’t about building walls, it’s about removing assumptions.
We’ll be putting together a full Gartner recap with tactical takeaways and action steps from all three days. But if there’s one thread tying everything together, it’s this:
AI will reshape security, but only if we reshape how we think about trust, metrics, and people.
Stay tuned for our round-up recap.
