From Alert Fatigue
to Proactive Defense
What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC
Contents
Introduction
Transforming your SOC with generative AI 3
Chapter 1
AI investigation and response: From data overload to actionable insights 5
Chapter 2
AI-powered analysis: From encoded scripts to clear summary 7
Chapter 3
Proactive threat hunting: From reactive to predictive defense 9
Chapter 4
Simplified security reporting: From data overload to clear communication 11
Conclusion
The future of SecOps is here with generative AI 13
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 3
Introduction
Transforming your SOC with generative AI
Today’s Security Operations Centers (SOCs) operate in an increasingly challenging threat
landscape. Cyber threats continue to grow rapidly in scale and sophistication, while security
teams are expected to do more than ever. Analysts face a record number of false positives
cluttering their alert queues, a sprawling array of tools, and constant pressure to protect their
organizations from increasingly complex attacks.
The numbers tell the story
Surging techscams Tool complexity
increase in daily different security
12x 14
incidents—as bad tools are used by the
actors exploit the average SOC, creating
expanding attack complexity instead
surface.1 of clarity.3
Talent shortages Inefficient workflows
of organizations of a SOC’s day is
report skills gaps, spent addressing
92% making it harder
to keep up with
32% incidents that
ultimately pose
evolving threats.2 no threat.4
For many SOC teams, this reality leads to fatigue, missed threats, and delayed remediation—
giving threat actors extended access and leaving organizations increasingly vulnerable to attack.
But there’s hope. Amid these growing challenges, generative AI offers transformative capabilities,
helping SOC teams bridge critical gaps and address the scale and complexity of today’s
sophisticated threats. Microsoft Security Copilot, powered by generative AI, exemplifies how
these advancements can empower analysts with guided responses, streamlined investigations,
and proactive threat hunting—all integrated seamlessly into existing security workflows.
1
“Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024,” page 37, Microsoft, 2024
2
“ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study: How the Economy, Skills Gap, and Artificial Intelligence
Are Challenging the Global Cybersecurity Workforce 2023,” page 20, ISC2, 2023
3
“The Unified Security Platform Era Is Here,” page 7, Microsoft, 2024.
4
“Global Security Operations Center Study Results,” page 6, IBM, March 2023
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 4
Generative AI can enhance every
stage of the SecOps workflow
Generative AI is helping SOC teams operationalize and contextualize their security data
and threat intelligence in ways never possible before:
Guided response Streamlined investigations
Deliver tailored, step-by-step Automatically enrich alerts, correlate
recommendations for containment and related data, and summarize attacker activity,
remediation based on the environment’s eliminating hours of manual investigation work
makeup and affected assets configuration, and empowering analysts to focus on the
enabling analysts to act quickly more critical tasks like mitigating the threat
and confidently. and bringing affected assets back online.
Proactive threat hunting Simplified reporting
Guide analysts through key processes and Transform complex security data into
query creation. Uncover hidden threats clear, actionable insights tailored to both
before they escalate, accelerating the hunt. technical teams and business leaders.
Generative AI–powered assistants have
the potential to transform SOCs by addressing
critical challenges such as scale, complexity, and
operational inefficiencies. Microsoft’s Security Copilot
exemplifies this potential, seamlessly integrating
with Microsoft Defender to deliver guided responses,
streamlined investigations, proactive threat hunting,
and simplified reporting—all while leveraging global
threat intelligence. By embedding generative AI
into existing workflows, organizations can empower
their analysts to act faster, smarter, and with
greater confidence.
In the following chapters, we’ll explore how
generative AI can revolutionize your SOC, helping
your team move from overwhelmed to empowered.
Let’s get started.
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 5
Chapter 1
AI investigation
and response:
From data overload
to actionable insights
Generative AI accelerates
incident response by reducing
alert overload and enabling
quicker triage and action.
Today’s SOC reality: Faster resolutions,
A challenge to keep up smarter teams
Even SOC teams with advanced tools Security Copilot empowers SOC teams
that group related alerts into incidents to start investigations with comprehensive
still spend valuable time orienting summaries and prioritized actions. As a
themselves, understanding what generative AI–powered assistant, it reduces
happened, and deciding on next steps. noise and provides actionable insights,
Analysts face endless alert queues and helping analysts respond confidently.
manual processes, making it difficult to Organizations using Security Copilot
respond effectively and often resulting in report a 30%5 reduction in mean time
missed threats. Double-critical incidents to resolution (MTTR), enabling faster threat
can go unaddressed during key moments containment. Additionally, Copilot reduces
due to the sheer volume of alerts and the number of alerts per incident by 23%6,
the time required to understand their allowing analysts to resolve threats earlier
context, determine necessary actions, in the kill chain while easing workloads.
and complete follow-ups.
This leads to delays in containment
and remediation, leaving organizations 5
“Generative AI and Security Operations Center Productivity:
exposed to evolving threats. Evidence from Live Operations,” page 2, Microsoft, November 2024
6
“Generative AI, Security Operations, Data Loss Prevention and
Device Policy Management: A Productivity Story,” page 4, Microsoft,
March 2025
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 6
AI in action
Guiding analysts to confident, rapid decisions
Consider a SOC analyst who receives an alert about unusual login activity from multiple
geolocations targeting a high-privilege user account. With generative AI enhancing their
workflow, the analyst can:
Streamline alert triage Take precise actions
Generative AI consolidates multiple related Based on the specific incident,
alerts, identifies a coordinated attack on generative AI recommends tailored next
privileged accounts, and prioritizes the steps, such as isolating affected accounts,
incident based on its severity—helping the resetting passwords, blocking malicious IPs,
analyst focus on the most critical threat and monitoring for further anomalies.
instead of clearing false positives or linking
together the attacker’s activity. Build confidence
Generative AI provides step-by-step
Receive actionable summaries guidance to ensure tasks are executed
Instead of sifting through raw data, the accurately, helping junior analysts grow
analyst gets a concise summary: “The incident while enabling senior analysts to focus
began with multiple failed sign-in attempts on higher-priority initiatives.
on the device ‘vnevado-linux’ (Linux) by the
user ‘root’ from IP 172.16.0.4. The process sshd
(PID: 20640) was running with root privileges,
indicating an unsuccessful logon attempt.”
With generative AI’s support, the analyst resolves the incident quickly, preventing data
exfiltration and ensuring compliance with internal policies. This enables faster, more
confident incident response, strengthening the SOC's ability to contain threats and protect
the organization.
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 7
Chapter 2
AI-powered
analysis: From
encoded scripts
to clear summary
Generative AI simplifies
investigations, turning complex
analyses into clear insights
that help analysts act decisively.
Today’s SOC reality: Smarter investigations,
Limited agency confident analysts
and wasted time Security Copilot accelerates investigations
by automating complex tasks and correlating
Investigations in SOCs are often reactive, threat intelligence, helping analysts uncover
driven by alerts or activity involving known critical insights faster. It simplifies workflows
indicators of compromise (IOCs). Analysts like decoding malicious scripts, reducing
and threat hunters spend hours manually investigation times from hours to seconds.
analyzing vast datasets, creating queries, Organizations leveraging Copilot saw an
and correlating threat intelligence— 18%7 decrease in time to classify DLP alerts,
efforts that demand specialized expertise. empowering analysts to act decisively.
A major challenge is decoding obfuscated Furthermore, 97% of users say they would
scripts, which requires technical skills many use Copilot again8, citing improved
analysts lack. This forces teams to rely productivity and reduced effort.
on external resources or colleagues for
help, slowing down investigations and
leaving critical threats undetected until
damage occurs.
7
“Generative AI, Security Operations, Data Loss Prevention and
Device Policy Management: A Productivity Story,” page 6,
Microsoft, March 2025
8
“Randomized Controlled Trial for Copilot for Security,” page 8,
Microsoft, January 2024
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 8
AI in action
Turning complex scripts into clear insights
Consider an SOC analyst who encounters a suspicious PowerShell script flagged during
routine monitoring. With AI enhancing their workflow, the analyst can:
De-obfuscate scripts instantly Validate findings quickly
Generative AI decodes the script, identifies Generative AI provides step-by-step
its purpose, and provides a concise summary: guidance, helping analysts confirm results
“This script downloads and executes a payload accurately, boosting confidence for junior
from [malicious domain].” team members.
Correlate with threat intelligence Accelerate workflows
Generative AI links the script to recent alerts By automating tedious tasks, generative AI
and known malware families, offering valuable reduces investigation time from hours to
context for attribution and mitigation. minutes, freeing senior analysts to focus
on strategic initiatives like threat hunting.
With generative AI’s support, the analyst uncovers critical insights quickly, validating findings
with confidence and mitigating threats before they escalate. This enables analysts to quickly
uncover critical insights, validating findings and mitigating threats, enhancing the SOC's
overall effectiveness.
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 9
Chapter 3
Proactive threat
hunting: From
reactive to
predictive defense
With predictive capabilities,
generative AI empowers SOCs
to anticipate and mitigate threats
before they escalate.
Today’s SOC reality: Faster insights,
Reactive and stronger defenses
resource strained Security Copilot empowers SOC
teams to act before threats escalate by
SOCs often struggle to stay ahead of correlating vast datasets, surfacing high-
attackers due to reactive workflows and risk indicators, and identifying attack
limited resources. Analysts must sift paths. In trials, Security Copilot improved
through vast datasets, correlate threat remediation guidance accuracy by
intelligence, and craft numerous custom 43%9, enabling analysts to take precise,
queries—often through trial and error— preemptive actions to neutralize threats.
to uncover actionable insights. This time- Additionally, Security Copilot reduces
consuming process demands specialized incident reopenings by 68%10, ensuring
expertise and significant effort, leaving incidents are resolved correctly the first
organizations vulnerable to undetected time and minimizing unresolved threats
threats and delayed responses. that could reappear later.
9
“Randomized Controlled Trial for Copilot for Security,” page 9,
Microsoft, January 2024
10
“Generative AI, Security Operations, Data Loss Prevention and
Device Policy Management: A Productivity Story,” page 5,
Microsoft, March 2025
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 10
AI in action
Anticipating threats before they escalate
Consider a threat hunter proactively searching for indicators of compromise (IOCs) tied to
a known threat actor targeting organizations in their industry. With generative AI enhancing
their workflow, the threat hunter can:
Build impactful hunting theories Correlate patterns automatically
Generative AI helps analysts quickly query Generative AI connects data points
alerts for emerging IOCs or specific attackers’ across alerts, incidents, and vulnerabilities,
tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) uncovering hidden relationships that might
targeting their organization. otherwise go unnoticed.
Ask targeted questions Take preemptive action
Using natural language queries like “Is Midnight AI recommends tailored mitigation steps,
Blizzard targeting my organization?” the threat such as blocking malicious domains or
hunter receives an instant answer with links patching vulnerabilities, enabling teams
to alerts that indicate a possible true positive. to neutralize threats before they escalate.
Each alert includes explanations of why it might
be related and actionable insights.
With generative AI’s support, analysts move beyond reactive workflows to proactively uncover
and mitigate threats. This enables a proactive, predictive defense, strengthening the SOC's
ability to anticipate and neutralize threats before they escalate.
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 11
Chapter 4
Simplified security
reporting: From
data overload to
clear communication
Generative AI streamlines security
reporting by automatically summarizing
the incident and the remediation action
taken by the team, delivered in a board-
ready report, enabling stakeholders to
make faster, more informed decisions.
Today’s SOC reality: Clearer reports,
Reporting overload better decisions
No SOC team looks forward to spending Security Copilot transforms reporting by
hours or even days creating after-action automating the collection, organization,
reports following an incident. The process and presentation of security data. By
is often long, tedious, and manual. consolidating information across tools
Analysts must gather and correlate and generating audience-ready summaries,
data from multiple tools, including logs, Security Copilot improves report quality
alerts, and threat intelligence, then rewrite and clarity by 86%,11 helping teams
and reformat it for both technical and make faster decisions. Beyond reporting,
nontechnical audiences. Security Copilot enhances IT workflows
with a 54%12 reduction in time to resolve
This inefficiency delays communication, device policy conflicts, saving analysts
risks misalignment between teams, time and ensuring devices remain secure
and leaves organizations struggling and compliant.
to clearly articulate their security
posture to stakeholders.
11
“Randomized Controlled Trial for Copilot for Security,” page 8,
Microsoft, January 2024
12
“Generative AI, Security Operations, Data Loss Prevention and
Device Policy Management: A Productivity Story,” page 8,
Microsoft, March 2025
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 12
AI in action
Simplified security reporting
Consider a SOC analyst summarizing a recent incident for both technical and executive
audiences. With generative AI enhancing their workflow, the analyst can:
Instantly consolidate data Highlight actionable insights
Generative AI gathers and organizes Generative AI summarizes the attack
information from multiple sources, including story, impacted assets, and next steps,
logs, alerts, and analyst comments, into providing clear recommendations for
a unified report. follow-up actions or unresolved issues.
Capture critical details Export and share effortlessly
Reports include timestamps for key actions With just a few clicks, reports can be
(e.g., incident creation, investigation steps, exported to formats like PDFs, making it
remediation), analyst-driven decisions, and easy to share findings with stakeholders
automated responses, ensuring nothing or use them in post-incident reviews.
is overlooked.
With generative AI’s support, analysts create concise, audience-ready reports that enable faster,
more informed decision-making. This transforms security reporting, enabling faster, more
informed decisions and freeing up SOC teams to focus on strategic security improvements.
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 13
Conclusion
The future of SecOps is here with generative AI
Generative AI is revolutionizing security operations, empowering SOC teams to work
smarter—not harder. By addressing today’s most pressing challenges, it redefines how
organizations approach cybersecurity. From triage to reporting, generative AI–powered
assistants enhance every aspect of the SecOps workflow, enabling faster responses,
stronger defenses, and more confident decision-making.
At the forefront of this transformation is Security Copilot, which unifies tools, operationalizes
threat intelligence, and guides analysts through complex workflows. Whether it’s accelerating
incident response, simplifying investigations, or enabling proactive threat hunting,
Security Copilot empowers SOC teams to adapt to evolving threats with ease.
Key takeaways
Throughout this guide, we’ve explored different scenarios that highlight the transformative
power of AI in security operations.
AI-guided response Proactive threat hunting
Turning data overload into actionable Transforming threat hunting with
insights for faster triage and resolution. predictive strategies to uncover risks
and act before threats escalate.
AI-guided investigations
Simplifying complex analyses, such as Simplified security reporting
decoding obfuscated scripts or correlating Streamlining communication by
threat intelligence, enabling analysts to transforming raw data into clear,
uncover critical insights quickly and act audience-ready insights
with confidence. for stakeholders.
These examples demonstrate how generative AI not only addresses operational
inefficiencies but also unlocks new opportunities for SOCs to stay ahead of evolving
threats while improving team performance and morale.
From Alert Fatigue to Proactive Defense: What Gen AI Can Do for Your SOC 14
The bigger picture
Generative AI represents
a paradigm shift in security
operations, unifying tools and
leveraging global threat intelligence
to help organizations adapt to
evolving threats. By enabling SOC
teams to stay ahead of attackers,
mitigate risks proactively, and
scale with growing data volumes,
Security Copilot builds resilience
for today’s challenges and
tomorrow’s uncertainties.
Begin your transformation
The promise of AI-powered SecOps isn’t just a vision for the future—it’s available today.
With Security Copilot, your team can move from overwhelmed to empowered, tackling
today’s challenges with confidence and preparing for tomorrow’s uncertainties.
To learn more about how Microsoft’s Unified SecOps
platform can transform your organization, visit our
AI-Powered Security Operations Platform page.
Your journey from overwhelmed to empowered starts now.
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