Every AI SOC vendor demos well. The harder question is how a solution behaves once it's running against your alerts, your team, and your edge cases, after the launch-week tuning fades.
This guide gives you a four-stage framework for evaluating any AI SOC solution, including ours. It covers the four areas that separate a strong solution from a good demo:
- Accuracy and context. Whether the verdicts hold up on alerts the vendor didn't choose.
- Operating model. Whether it fits how your team already works, or assumes you'll rebuild around it.
- Sustainability and risk. Whether it stays reliable as your environment changes.
- Lessons from production. What teams already running these systems would do differently.
It includes an evaluation checklist you can bring into vendor meetings and an appendix of red flags worth questioning before you sign.
Written by Oliver Rochford and Prateek Bhajanka of the Cyberfuturists, an independent research and advisory firm.