New Study From SentinelOne & S&P Global’s 451 Research Uncovers Widely Divergent Enterprise Readiness for Autonomous SOC Adoption
Analysis of finance, retail, and healthcare data shows adoption and trust of AI-driven security operations moving at three very different speeds, each shaped by specific fears
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – September 17 – SentinelOne® (NYSE: S), the AI Security leader, today released new industry research examining how financial services, retail, and healthcare organizations are embracing AI-driven, autonomous security operations. Built on cybersecurity decision-makers surveyed by 451 Research (S&P Global), the data shows the autonomous SOC maturity varies significantly by industry. Across three of the primary sectors studied, the rate and level of adoption is diverging sharply, each moving on its own timeline toward automation of key investigation, triage, detection and response workflows.
Coverage, both in the media and the analyst community, tends to treat the relative adoption of what is commonly called the autonomous (or agentic or AI) SOC as a single race and measure. The new research from 451 and SentinelOne breaks down that framing, providing perspective on which industries are further ahead and what’s driving the speed of AI innovation in the SOC.
Key takeaway: Maturity depends on what SecOps teams can least afford to get wrong, and that, more than anything, does align well within respective sectors. Finance, retail, and healthcare are three clear examples of that pattern, each optimizing for a different risk, each adopting agentic workflows at the speed that risk demands.
“Our experience has shown that how and where AI is embraced comes down to customers’ trust in AI in order to feel confident in deploying AI in the SOC,” said Steve Stone, Chief Customer Officer at SentinelOne. “There is no right or wrong answer to where organizations should be on the maturity model. Finance is focused on protecting trust and access, retail is protecting speed and convenience, and healthcare is protecting confidentiality and certainty.”
Findings by industry:
- Finance: has built the most consolidated security architecture of the three sectors (84% platform-oriented), and the strongest governance. But only 28%, the lowest of the three, is actually in production while it finishes normalizing decades of core-banking data for AI to act on effectively.
- Retail: is moving fast, with 44% already running AI in live SOC production.
- Healthcare: sits in between the two sectors on AI in live production (36%) but once it commits, it goes further than either peer. 52% of healthcare organizations already running AI in the SOC describe that deployments are fully scaled across multiple workflows, the highest of the three sectors.
The full industry analysis is available in the industry deep dive report.
About SentinelOne
SentinelOne (NYSE: S) is the leader in AI security, setting the standard for using AI and automation to give defenders a decisive operating advantage. Built for those who secure our world, its platform delivers unified coverage across endpoints, identity, cloud, and AI. Powered by Autonomous Security Intelligence, SentinelOne stops attacks at machine speed, reducing risk and delivering clarity and control to stay one step ahead. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, with teams worldwide, SentinelOne protects nearly one-fifth of the Fortune 500 and hundreds of Global 2000 enterprises. From Main Street to Wall Street, the world’s most critical organizations trust SentinelOne with their security.
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