Headline figure
74%
use automated enrichment, the most widespread type
Source: SOC Maturity Report 2026, SOC-CMM® (CC BY-SA 4.0), soc-cmm.com. AI and Automation section, SOC automation types and SOC automation tools charts.
SOC automation statistics: 2026 SOC-CMM report
SOC automation in 2026: enrichment 74% (+56%), response automation 60% (+117%) and SOAR now overtakes SIEM as the automation tool of choice.
Executive reading
Automation grows across every type measured by the 2026 SOC Maturity Report. Automated enrichment reaches 74% (+56% year over year) and response automation more than doubles to 60% (+117%). They are followed by ticket automation (57%, +20%), workflow and runbook automation (53%, +46%), automated analysis (49%, +26%) and reporting automation (43%, +20%). On tooling, the report documents a changing of the guard: SOAR (70%) overtakes SIEM (45%) as the preferred automation platform, after SIEM led the previous year.
What does this mean for your SOC? Automating enrichment no longer differentiates: with 74% of the market doing it, it is the baseline. The competitive frontier is response automation with risk control: validated actions, defined owners and human approval where impact demands it. SOC-CMM 2.4 introduces automation engineering as a dedicated aspect of the Process domain, and the AI and automation in SOC-CMM page explains how it is evaluated. More automation does not mean more maturity: it means maturity only if it reduces measurable workload and keeps traceability.
Report data
| Metric | Value | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Automated enrichment | 74% | +56% YoY; most common type. |
| Response automation | 60% | +117% YoY; the largest growth. |
| Ticket automation | 57% | +20% YoY; daily operations. |
| Workflow/runbook automation | 53% | +46% YoY; automated process. |
| SOAR as tool | 70% | Overtakes SIEM (45%) as the automation tool. |
Analysis and context
Methodology: the figures come from the 2026 SOC Maturity Report survey (late January to mid-March 2026; 290 responses, roughly 200 retained after cleaning). The report itself urges caution with the increases: a jump like +117% in response automation cannot be explained by one year of maturity progression alone and partly reflects the changed sample composition. Multi-year trends will confirm the real progression.
The shift from SIEM to SOAR as the automation tool is the structural change of the year. Many teams use several tools at once: SOAR (70%), SIEM (45%) and custom scripting complete the picture. The practical reading is that automation is professionalizing: it is moving out of ad hoc scripts and SIEM rules into platforms with versioned playbooks, owners and metrics.
The people context explains the urgency: workload is the top cause of SOC stress (53%) and false positives the second (47%). Well-directed automation attacks both. It is no coincidence that increasing automation is the number one improvement priority for 2026 (65% of respondents, +39% year over year). To govern that investment with risk and evidence criteria, the AI assurance service evaluates guardrails before automated actions reach production.
What to do with this data
- Inventory playbooks.
- Define automation owners.
- Measure workload reduction.
- Validate automated actions before production.
- Treat automated enrichment as the baseline, not a differentiator.