The AI-SOC paradox: APAC companies’ High hopes confront implementation hurdles

Almost all companies planning to establish a Security Operations Center (SOC) regard artificial intelligence (AI) as a must-have component. However, despite high expectations, organizations face significant challenges in deploying and operationalizing AI effectively. These include a lack of high-quality training data, a shortage of AI-skilled personnel, substantial integration costs and emerging AI-related threats.

To explore how companies build and maintain processes in SOCs, Kaspersky conducted a comprehensive global study that includes respondents from Asia Pacific (APAC) which highlights, among other things, priorities, expectations and challenges associated with leveraging AI to elevate SOC performance. The findings reveal that an overwhelming 99% of respondents from the region plan to incorporate AI into their security operations. Among them, nearly two-thirds (67%) say they will probably do so and nearly one-third (32%) state they will definitely do so. This underscores the widespread perception of AI as a vital driver for enhancing threat detection, accelerating investigation processes and boosting overall SOC efficiency. The numbers in APAC are aligned with the global sentiment.

When it comes to practical use cases, organizations in APAC primarily expect AI to strengthen threat detection capabilities through automated analysis of data to identify anomalies and suspicious activities (60%) and to facilitate response automation, enabling rapid execution of predefined incident response scenarios (55%). 

These expectations align closely with the top motivations driving AI adoption in SOCs for the region: improving overall threat detection effectiveness (55%), automating routine tasks (47%) and increasing accuracy while reducing false positives (45%). Globally, large enterprises consistently report broader and more ambitious plans for applying AI across multiple SOC functions.

“Across APAC, organizations are taking a pragmatic approach to AI in the SOC, prioritizing use cases that deliver immediate operational impact. The strongest expectations center on enhancing threat detection through automated anomaly analysis and accelerating response through predefined automation. These priorities reflect the region’s focus on improving detection effectiveness, reducing alert fatigue, and freeing up security teams from routine tasks. While large enterprises globally are pursuing broader AI ambitions, APAC companies are clearly focused on applying AI where it most directly strengthens resilience and day-to-day security operations,” comments Adrian Hia, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky.

However, a clear execution gap appears when it comes to AI implementation, characterized by several critical and widespread challenges. Foremost is the lack of high-quality training data, a barrier cited by 44% of organizations in APAC as a fundamental obstacle that hampers the accuracy and relevance of AI models. This issue is further compounded by other critical concerns: a shortage of qualified AI experts within internal team (37%), the emergence of new threats and vulnerabilities related to AI usage (34%), the difficulties of integrating and managing AI tools (34%), and the high costs associated with developing and maintaining AI-driven solutions (33%). Together, these factors create a barrier that prevents local companies from turning their AI strategy into operational success, underscoring the necessity for a structured and well-supported approach.

“Organizations clearly recognize the value AI can bring to SOCs but the transition from experimentation to real SOC impact still remains challenging. Given the cybersecurity talent shortages—and AI talent being scarce as well—introducing in-house AI capabilities in a SOC remains a coveted but hard-to-achieve goal. This is why cybersecurity companies are investing in AI-powered features across their leading products. Over the past year, Kaspersky has introduced a comprehensive suite of AI-powered tools across its B2B portfolio to meet the rising demand for timely detection of more advanced threats, while also making our solutions more efficient and user-friendly,” says Anton Ivanov, Chief Technology Officer at Kaspersky.

To build and operate a successful and reliable SOC, Kaspersky recommends the following: Engage with Kaspersky SOC Consulting during the initial setup or when enhancing your existing security operations. Our comprehensive consulting services are designed to help companies build a robust SOC and streamline its processes. Boost your security performance with  Kaspersky SIEM, powered by advanced AI capabilities. This solution aggregates, analyzes and stores log data across your entire IT infrastructure, providing contextual enrichment and actionable threat intelligence insights. Recently, this solution was empowered by AI capability to identify signs of dynamic link library (DLL) hijacking.

Protect your company against a wide range of threats with solutions from the Kaspersky Next product line that provide real-time protection, threat visibility and AI-driven investigation and response capabilities of EDR and XDR for organizations of any size and industry. Equip your cybersecurity team with in-depth visibility into cyber threats targeting your organization. The latest Kaspersky Threat Intelligence delivers rich, contextual insights throughout the entire incident management cycle, enabling timely identification of cyber risks. Recently, it was strengthened by AI-enhanced open-source intelligence search, enhancing your team’s ability to uncover and respond to emerging threats with greater precision.

To explore more of Kaspersky’s solutions and services for building and enhancing your SOC, please follow this link.