A newly released report from Swimlane, the leader in agentic AI automation for every security function, has found that the era of AI and automation adoption in security operations is, for nearly every enterprise, well underway. Eighty-seven percent of organizations have deployed both technologies simultaneously, and investment continues to rise. The report, “The Perception Gap: Why AI and Automation in Security Operations Aren’t Delivering What Leaders Think,” captures an industry at a clear inflection point: adoption is no longer the challenge. Strategy is next.
Swimlane surveyed 500 IT and cybersecurity decision-makers across the U.S. and U.K. to understand what separates teams seeing results from those still waiting. The news is largely good: automation has met or exceeded expectations for 92% of respondents, and 78% say AI already delivers greater financial return than automation. Yet a gap remains: only 32% of organizations apply AI and automation to clearly different tasks based on their distinct strengths — and that gap explains why workflow bottlenecks persist across 91% of organizations despite near-universal deployment.
“Organizations have moved fast to deploy these technologies, and that’s real progress,” said Cody Cornell, CEO at Swimlane. “Ninety-two percent of teams say automation has delivered. AI is building that same track record. The teams that pull ahead from here will be the ones that move beyond deployment and build deliberate strategy around how these tools are used together — who owns what, where each technology belongs in the workflow, and how leaders and practitioners align on what good looks like. That’s where the performance gains are waiting.”
Key Takeaways
- High Adoption, Low Impact — The Cost of Overlapping Tools: 87% of organizations have deployed both AI and automation in security operations simultaneously, yet only 32% apply them to clearly different tasks based on their distinct strengths. The top use cases for both technologies are nearly identical: threat detection, reporting, incident response, and alert triage, signaling that many organizations are pointing two different tools at the same problems without a clear division of labor.
- Leadership and Practitioners Are Living in Different Realities: The sharpest finding in the research is a pervasive perception gap between executives and frontline teams. Sixty-seven percent of C-suite leaders report being “very confident” in AI’s outputs, compared to just 21% of managers. AI exceeded expectations for 52% of C-suite respondents but only 17% of managers. The same pattern holds for automation, ROI assessments, and role clarity; on every metric measured, executives hold a fundamentally more optimistic view than the practitioners who rely on these tools daily.
- The Tools Are In. The Friction Isn’t Gone: Only 9% of organizations report no significant workflow delays, despite near-universal deployment of AI and automation. The top bottlenecks are decision-making and approvals (44%) and investigation and analysis (39%), both fundamentally human-in-the-loop stages where AI has significant untapped potential. An additional 29% cite transitions between teams or tools as a meaningful source of delay, underscoring the cost of operating AI and automation as parallel silos rather than a single coherent capability.
Automation Has Earned Its Trust. AI Is Still Building Its Case.
Ninety-two percent of respondents say automation has met or exceeded operational expectations in security operations, reflecting years of proven, predictable performance. AI is newer to the space but already demonstrating strong financial returns: 78% of respondents say AI delivers greater ROI than automation. Fifty-five percent of teams report AI has met expectations, with room to grow as deployment matures and more organizations move beyond early implementation into deliberate, workflow-integrated use.
Closing the Gap Requires Communication, Not New Investment.
Organizations best positioned to realize AI’s full potential are those creating clearer feedback channels between frontline teams and executive decision-makers. The research points to practical steps: monthly practitioner feedback loops, joint strategy sessions with frontline representation, shared dashboards that make operational friction visible to leadership, and workflow design decisions made with input from the people closest to the work. The opportunity isn’t in adding more tools, it’s in deploying existing ones with greater strategic intent.
“The perception gap in this research isn’t a technology problem. It’s a communication problem,” said Michael Lyborg, CISO of Swimlane. “When executives and practitioners experience the same tools so differently, the feedback loops between the boardroom and the operations floor aren’t working. That disconnect has real consequences. Threat actors already have rapid access to sophisticated exploit capabilities, and that gap is only widening. Security practitioners need to be adopting AI now, not to check a box, but to keep pace with what’s being used against them. The organizations that get this right won’t be the ones with the biggest budgets. They’ll be the ones that make operational reality visible to the people making strategic decisions, and actually act on what they hear.”
Key Resources
- Download the report: The Perception Gap: Why AI and Automation in Security Operations Aren’t Delivering What Leaders Think
Methodology
The survey was conducted among 500 IT and cybersecurity decision-makers at enterprise companies with at least 1,000 employees in the United States and the United Kingdom. The interviews were conducted online by Sapio Research and under the guidance of Swimlane, between February and March 2026, using an email invitation and an online survey. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number throughout this report. As a result, individual figures may not sum exactly to 100%.
About Swimlane
At Swimlane, we believe the convergence of agentic AI and automation can solve the most challenging security, compliance and IT/OT operations problems. With Swimlane, enterprises and MSSPs benefit from the world’s first and only AI automation platform for every security function. Only Swimlane gives you the scale and flexibility to unify security teams, tools and telemetry, ensuring today’s SecOps are always a step ahead of tomorrow’s threats.
Learn more: swimlane.com
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