METHOD · UPDATED 13 OCTOBER 2026
How we score AI SOC platforms for SOAR replacement
Cyber AI Comparison team · Last checked September 2026 · Editorial assessment
What to know
Each platform gets an editorial score from 0 to 10 on seven weighted criteria, and the weighted total is computed from those scores. Facts come from vendors' public pages, reviewed in September 2026; Tines, Exaforce and Artemis Security were added, and three pricing scores corrected from AWS Marketplace listings, on 13 October 2026. We did not test the products.
What does this guide cover?
Platforms that security teams evaluate when they move alert triage, investigation and response off a playbook-based SOAR: AI SOC platforms (also called agentic SOC or AI SOC analysts) and, as a baseline, the two most common incumbent SOARs. It does not cover SIEMs, MDR services or detection content on their own.
Some products we read do not answer this question, so we list them as reviewed, not scored: Vega and Daylight Security. Vega describes detection, hunting and triage with next actions for analysts but does not state that it executes response or replaces SOAR, and Daylight Security is a managed service rather than a platform your team runs in place of a SOAR. They do not appear in the rankings, head-to-heads, alternatives pages or calculator. See Reviewed, not scored.
How do we score?
| Criterion | Weight | What we look for |
|---|---|---|
| Investigation depth per alert | 20% | How far the platform goes on a single alert without a human: evidence gathered across tools, pivots, context about the environment, domain coverage (endpoint, identity, email, cloud, insider). |
| Explainability of verdicts | 15% | Can an analyst read why a verdict was reached: evidence trail, steps taken, tool requests and responses, the ability to challenge or correct a verdict. |
| Coverage of alert sources | 15% | Breadth of published integrations and alert categories a team can connect on day one. |
| Human-in-the-loop controls | 15% | Approval gates, autonomy levels, scoped actions, audit trail, ways to pull autonomy back. |
| Transition effort from an existing SOAR | 15% | How much of an existing SOAR estate (playbooks, integrations, response actions) carries over, can be translated, or can keep running alongside during the move. Incumbents score high here because staying put needs no migration. |
| Deployment model options | 10% | Published options such as SaaS, single-tenant, customer cloud tenant, on-premises, data residency. |
| Pricing transparency | 10% | Can a buyer see prices, tiers or at least the pricing unit before a sales call. |
Each criterion is scored 0 to 10 by the Cyber AI Comparison team against the public evidence listed on each profile, with a one-line reason. Weighted score = sum of (criterion score × weight) ÷ 100, computed by the site from the published weights. Equal totals are shown as ties. Where a vendor does not publish a fact that a criterion needs, we score conservatively and say so in the reason.
- What SOAR already does: playbook automation
- What AI SOC platforms add: AI triage and AI investigation
- What stays with people: the human decision
- Alerts in. SIEM, EDR, identity, email, cloud
- Playbook automation. Known, repeatable patterns. Deterministic. The SOAR layer.
- AI triage. Every alert classified; noise closed with a stated reason
- AI investigation. Evidence gathered across tools; verdict with an audit trail
- Human decision. Approve response, handle what is new or high impact
Why these weights?
Investigation depth carries the most weight (20%) because it is the work a playbook cannot do for the long tail of alerts. Explainability, coverage, human controls and transition effort each carry 15% because a replacement that analysts cannot audit, that misses alert sources, that acts without limits, or that needs a rewrite of every playbook will stall. Deployment options and pricing transparency carry 10% each: they matter in procurement, but they rarely decide whether the product does the job.
Where do the facts come from?
We read each vendor's product pages, documentation, trust or security pages, pricing pages and press pages, and record the URL beside each fact. Figures such as MTTR reductions or autonomous remediation rates are the vendors' own claims and are labelled as such. Where a vendor does not publish a detail we write 'Not published' or 'Contact sales' rather than estimate.
What are the limitations?
- Public sources only. Based on vendor websites, docs and funding announcements, last checked September 2026, with Tines, Exaforce, Artemis Security and AWS Marketplace pricing checked in October 2026.
- No hands-on testing. We did not run the products, and scores are not benchmark results.
- No vendor interviews or briefings.
- Vendors that publish more score better on transparency criteria. A product may be stronger than its public pages show.
- One vendor we considered, Radiant Security, is not scored in this edition because we could not retrieve enough of its public pages to score it fairly.
How do we handle corrections and updates?
Email editors@cyberaicomparison.com with the page, the claim and a public source. We re-check every price and headline feature each quarter and record changes by edition. This edition: 2026.10.
Frequently asked questions
Did you test these platforms?
No. This is based on vendor websites, docs and funding announcements. We say so on every profile.
Why score incumbent SOARs?
To show what a replacement has to beat. Cortex XSOAR scores second overall on this rubric.