Kaspersky Study: 80% of Egyptian Firms Plan AI-Driven SOCs, but Talent and Data Gaps Hinder Implementation
Nearly all organizations planning to establish a Security Operations Center (SOC) view artificial intelligence (AI) as an essential component. However, despite strong expectations, many companies continue to face substantial barriers in effectively deploying and operationalizing AI technologies.
According to a comprehensive global study conducted by Kaspersky examining how companies build and manage SOC processes, 99% of respondents intend to integrate AI into their security operations. In Egypt, 80% of organizations report they are likely to adopt AI-powered SOC capabilities, while 20% say they are certain to do so. The findings highlight AI’s perceived role in strengthening threat detection, accelerating investigations, and enhancing overall SOC efficiency.
AI Seen as Critical to Threat Detection and Automation
Egyptian organizations primarily expect AI to improve threat detection through automated data analysis capable of identifying anomalies and suspicious activity (50%), as well as to enable response automation for rapid execution of predefined incident response scenarios (52%).
These expectations are aligned with key motivations driving AI adoption in SOC environments:
Improving overall threat detection effectiveness (46%)
Automating routine operational tasks (44%)
Increasing accuracy while reducing false positives (42%)
Large enterprises, in particular, report more expansive and ambitious plans to apply AI across multiple SOC functions.
Execution Challenges Create a Significant Gap
Despite widespread enthusiasm, organizations face a clear implementation gap. The most significant barrier in Egypt is the lack of high-quality training data, cited by 42% of respondents as a fundamental obstacle limiting AI model accuracy and reliability.
Additional challenges include:
Emergence of new AI-related threats and vulnerabilities (40%)
Shortage of qualified AI professionals within internal teams (24%)
High costs associated with developing and maintaining AI-driven solutions (24%)
Collectively, these factors prevent many organizations from translating AI strategy into measurable operational success, underscoring the need for structured implementation frameworks and external expertise.
Expert Insight
“Organizations clearly recognize the value AI can bring to SOCs, but the transition from experimentation to real SOC impact remains challenging,” said Anton Ivanov, Chief Technology Officer at Kaspersky. “Given the global cybersecurity talent shortage—and the even greater scarcity of AI specialists—building in-house AI capabilities within a SOC is an ambitious goal. This is why cybersecurity companies are embedding AI-powered features across their core solutions. Over the past year, Kaspersky has introduced a comprehensive suite of AI-driven tools across its B2B portfolio to address the growing demand for faster detection of increasingly sophisticated threats while improving usability and operational efficiency.”
Recommendations for Building a Reliable AI-Driven SOC
To support organizations seeking to establish or enhance SOC capabilities, Kaspersky recommends:
Engaging with Kaspersky SOC Consulting during initial setup or modernization phases to build structured, resilient security operations.
Deploying Kaspersky SIEM, powered by advanced AI features, to aggregate and analyze log data across IT environments and provide contextual threat intelligence insights. The solution now includes AI-driven detection of dynamic link library (DLL) hijacking.
Leveraging solutions within the Kaspersky Next product line, offering real-time protection, threat visibility, and AI-powered EDR and XDR investigation capabilities for organizations of all sizes.
Utilizing Kaspersky Threat Intelligence services, enhanced with AI-driven open-source intelligence search, to gain deeper visibility into emerging cyber risks and improve incident response precision.