Darktrace’s State of AI Cybersecurity 2026, surveying more than 1,500 security leaders, captures the trust gap defining this year’s SOC: 96% agree AI significantly improves speed and efficiency, 92% say AI-powered threats are forcing defense upgrades yet only 14% allow AI to take remediation actions without a human in the loop. That’s not irrational caution; it’s a governance problem waiting for an architecture. The teams making agentic AI work aren’t granting blanket autonomy, rather, they are separating investigation (where AI can safely run deep and wide, gathering evidence and answering questions across systems) from action (where human judgment stays accountable). Full transparency into how an AI reached its conclusion with every question asked, every data source touched. This is what converts that 14% into something defensible. When you evaluate AI SOC tooling this year, ask vendors to show you the reasoning trail, not the demo verdict.