Cybersecurity provider Vectra AI has published its 2026 State of Threat Detection and Response Report, revealing a persistent gap between security investment and real-world cyber resilience.
Lagging confidence amid rising AI adoption
Based on a survey of 1,450 security practitioners and leaders worldwide, the report found that while many security teams feel better staffed and equipped due to AI, this perceived readiness hasn’t translated into stronger confidence in detection, investigation, or response.
Vectra AI highlighted fragmented visibility, alert overload, and tool sprawl as ongoing obstacles that limit teams’ ability to clearly see risk and act with certainty when attacks occur.
“Organizations have invested heavily in people, tools, and AI, but confidence hasn’t kept pace,” said Mark Wojtasiak, senior vice president of research and strategy at Vectra AI.
“Cyber resilience depends on trusted signals. When defenders can’t clearly distinguish real threats from noise, response slows, and resilience becomes difficult to deliver and even harder to prove,” Wojtasiak added.
Vectra AI’s Threat Detection and Response report found that:
- Organizations receive an average of 2,992 security alerts per day, down from 3,832 a year earlier; however, 63 percent of alerts still go unaddressed.
- 71 percent of defenders report setting aside important security tasks at least two days per week.
- Only 58 to 60 percent report full or near-full visibility across endpoints, on-premises networks, cloud environments, and identities.
- 69 percent of organizations use more than 10 detection and response tools, while 39 percent use more than 20.
AI tools yet to deliver impactful cyber resilience
Vectra AI underscored that while optimism around AI is high, its impact has not yet translated into measurable improvements in visibility, response speed, or confidence.
The report found that 44 percent of defenders are struggling to prioritize real threats, though 76 percent of defenders state that AI agents and/or AI assistants now handle more than 10 percent of their workload.
The report surfaced other trends, such as:
- 67 percent of defenders say AI-powered tools have positively impacted threat identification and response.
- 87 percent expect to increase AI use, primarily to replace legacy detection and response tools.
- 63 percent want AI agents to handle alert triage and investigations.
For the cybersecurity company, these findings show that while AI adoption is helping security teams absorb workload, it has not yet delivered resilience.
“Cyber resilience remains constrained by confidence in the signals driving security decisions. Until organizations can clearly see risk, act decisively, and prove outcomes, resilience will remain stalled—even in the AI era,” Vectra AI said in an official statement.
Earlier this year, Vectra AI launched its next-gen cybersecurity platform, aiming to deliver proactive defense against AI-powered attacks. Read more about the solution and how it can help secure enterprises in today’s AI era.