A quarter of security staff polled by Swimlane say AI has limited their skill-building
Swimlane surveyed 500 US and UK security staff and found 24% say AI has limited their ability to build skills. Satisfaction barely differs between those who say AI helps their skills and those who say it hurts, so morale scores cannot show whether juniors are learning.
The Watch · Security desk
What happened
- Forty-three percent of respondents said they now spend less time on repetitive work and more time on broader responsibilities.
- Nearly half, 47%, expect AI to make entry into the profession harder, with 37% predicting higher entry-level requirements and 10% fewer chances for juniors to gain experience.
- Some 92% said they could spot an incorrect or incomplete AI recommendation, and 48% said they would rely on their own judgment when one conflicts with the evidence.
- Just 1% expect the SOC career path to stay largely unchanged, while 41% expect new roles built around AI oversight, validation and orchestration.
Why it matters
- Who has to decide decision SOC leaders who automate Tier 1 triage now have to schedule investigative work for juniors deliberately, since less of it arrives through the alert queue on its own.
- Who's exposed exposure Human oversight of AI triage depends on analysts catching bad recommendations, and the only evidence here that they can is their own rating of themselves.
- What it limits constraint A higher bar for entry-level roles, if it arrives, shrinks the pool a SOC can hire from today and promote into Tier 2-3 seats later.
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Swimlane, a security operations vendor, ran the survey for its own report, The New SOC Career Ladder [2][1]. It polled people at organizations that already use AI [1].
Most of the survey is about productivity. Nearly half, 47%, named greater capacity as one of AI's two biggest impacts, and 35% said they now have more time to investigate complex threats [10].
The skills complaint comes from a smaller group. The 24% who say AI has limited their skill-building come to about 120 people [18]. Cody Cornell, Swimlane's chief executive, gave the reason. "The challenge is that routine work has also been one of the ways analysts learn the fundamentals," he said [12].
The satisfaction numbers will not help a manager find those 120. With 88% saying AI improved their job satisfaction [6], at least 12% of the sample, about 60 people, reported both higher satisfaction and limited skill-building, assuming both shares are of all 500 respondents [19]. The report concluded that leaders should "measure skill growth separately from employee satisfaction and give junior analysts structured opportunities to develop investigative judgement" [11].
Swimlane's executives link the skills problem to oversight. "The issue is not whether analysts should trust AI. It is whether they have enough information to decide when to trust it," said Mike Lyborg, Swimlane's CISO [14]. "AI may be taking on more work in the SOC, but accountability still belongs with people," he said [15]. Cornell tied that accountability to training. Organizations "need to rethink training and career paths so people still develop the judgment to know when AI is right and when it is not," he said [13].
Earlier data complicates the case for keeping analysts on routine work. In a 2025 Abnormal AI report, 73% of responding analysts said manual or reactive tasks were stalling their career growth [17]. In the same report, 44% of SOCs were developing plans to move Tier 1 analysts into Tier 2-3 roles [16]. Between them, the two surveys put the fundamentals and the career stall in the same Tier 1 work [12][17].
The evidence supports a narrow version of the pipeline worry. The figures on a harder route into the job are forecasts from people already in it [8][1]. The survey does not measure whether juniors trained alongside AI investigate worse than earlier cohorts did [1].
What to watch
- Whether Swimlane releases a breakdown by seniority showing if the 24% reporting limited skill-building are mostly junior analysts.
- Whether SOC job postings start listing AI oversight and validation as formal roles, as 41% of respondents expect.
- Follow-up data on whether the 44% of SOCs planning Tier 1-to-Tier 2-3 moves in Abnormal AI's 2025 report actually carried them out.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence50
- Adoption50
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives65
- Confidence55
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Swimlane polled 500 security professionals and leaders at US and UK organizations that are using AI for its report The New SOC Career Ladder.
- [2]
Swimlane is a security operations (SecOps) specialist.
- [3]
24% of respondents said AI has limited their ability to build skills.
- [4]
43% of respondents said they are spending less time on repetitive work and more time on broader responsibilities.
- [5]
92% of respondents are confident they could identify an incorrect or incomplete AI recommendation, and 48% said they would rely on their own judgment if an AI recommendation conflicts with available evidence or could disrupt business operations.
- [6]
88% of respondents said AI has improved their job satisfaction.
- [7]
Job satisfaction levels are virtually unchanged between the cohort saying AI is boosting skills development and the cohort saying the opposite.
- [8]
47% of respondents expect AI to create a steeper path into the profession, including 37% who expect higher requirements for entry-level roles and 10% who expect fewer opportunities for junior analysts to gain experience.
- [9]
41% expect new specialized roles focused on AI oversight, validation and orchestration; only 1% expect the SOC career path to remain largely unchanged.
- [10]
47% said greater capacity is one of the two biggest impacts of using AI; 35% said they have more time to investigate complex threats and 35% said they can focus more on strategic or cross-functional work.
- [11]
"Security leaders need to establish AI oversight as a formal responsibility, measure skill growth separately from employee satisfaction and give junior analysts structured opportunities to develop investigative judgement."
- [12]
"The challenge is that routine work has also been one of the ways analysts learn the fundamentals,"
- [13]
"As more of that work is automated, organizations need to rethink training and career paths so people still develop the judgment to know when AI is right and when it is not."
- [14]
"The issue is not whether analysts should trust AI. It is whether they have enough information to decide when to trust it,"
- [15]
"AI may be taking on more work in the SOC, but accountability still belongs with people."
- [16]
A 2025 report from Abnormal AI found 44% of SOCs are developing plans to migrate Tier 1 SOC analysts to more senior Tier 2-3 roles.
- [17]
In the 2025 Abnormal AI report, 73% of responding analysts said manual or reactive tasks are stalling their career growth.
- [18]
About 120 of the 500 respondents said AI has limited their ability to build skills.
- [19]
At least 12% of respondents, about 60 people, reported both improved job satisfaction and limited skill-building, if both shares are of the same 500 respondents.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- helpnetsecurity.comMany expect AI in the SOC to make entry jobs harder to get
1 article · September 30, 2026
- infosecurity-magazine.comAI Boosts SOC Analyst Capacity but Limits Skill Development
1 article · September 30, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- SOC workforce and careers
- AI in Security Operations
Entities
- Swimlane Inc.
- The New SOC Career Ladder