2025 exposed a shift that had been forming for years. Security operations were not slowed by limited visibility or weak tooling. They were slowed because the effort required to interpret growing volumes of data increased faster than staffing, budgets, or governance frameworks could support. Alert queues expanded, dashboards multiplied, cloud bills shaped retention choices, and AI arrived before most organizations had clear policies to supervise it. It was not a talent problem. It was an operational design problem, and 2026 will require far more deliberate approaches to data strategy, investigation structure, and AI governance.
The latest Logs & Lattes conversation with Jeff Darrington captured this reality clearly. Jeff described teams reaching maximum load, analysts pivoting across too many tools, dashboards that created summaries instead of decisions, AI features delivered without guardrails, and cloud costs that pushed organizations to store data based on budget rather than risk. He also highlighted slowdowns rooted in inconsistent workflows rather than analyst capability. The discussion distilled 2025 into one theme. Security teams were not struggling with visibility. They were struggling with interpretation, prioritization, and sustainable process.
This framing sets the stage for the trends that shaped 2025 and the predictions that will influence 2026.
2025 Trend 1: AI Outpaced Oversight
Teams adopted AI quickly, and many analysts gained comfort working with it. But the pace of adoption exceeded governance. As Jeff noted, AI showed up before teams had guardrails to supervise it. Analysts relied on AI for speed while questioning its output, which created hesitation and slowed early triage. Many organizations gained acceleration but not confidence.
2026 Prediction: AI becomes a supervised first pass.
Teams will use AI to summarize, group, and propose next steps, while keeping full authority to validate and override. Explain-ability, predictable behavior, and clear policy boundaries will define trustworthy AI in the SOC.
2025 Trend 2: Dashboards Expanded While Context Thinned
Dashboards grew in number but not in value. Jeff was direct about this. Analysts spent more time summarizing dashboards than using them. Many could not remember what changed from one day to the next because the visual layers lacked alignment with investigation flow. Dashboards informed no clear next step, and clutter consumed cognitive bandwidth.
2026 Prediction: Dashboards become outcome oriented.
Teams will build views that immediately support triage and pivot into investigation. Entity centric insights, table driven exploration, and clear progression from signal to action will replace visual complexity.
2025 Trend 3: Cloud Costs Quietly Dictated Security Decisions
Cloud adoption grew, and with it came governance challenges. Jeff explained how teams realized that rehydrating archived logs could trigger surprise bills. Multi cloud environments created fragmented storage, inconsistent retention patterns, and confusion about what data was safe to retrieve. Costs shaped retention far more than value.
2026 Prediction: Data governance centers on predictability.
Teams will adopt tiered retention, selective retrieval, and clear access patterns that map to investigations rather than raw accumulation. Smart data beats big data, not only for cost control but for performance and clarity.
2025 Trend 4: Process, Not Skill, Slowed Investigations
Jeff pushed back on the narrative that the industry lacks skilled analysts. Incidents stalled because workflows were inconsistent. Teams lacked clear first steps, context lived across multiple tools, and definitions of completion varied. Escalation and handoff decisions were not predictable. Structured responses delivered faster outcomes, while unstructured approaches created drag.
2026 Prediction: Investigation structure becomes a primary KPI.
Teams will adopt repeatable investigation paths, practice them through tabletop exercises, and formalize definitions of completion. Precision in process will matter as much as precision in detection.
2025 Trend 5: API Exposure Grew Faster Than Tracking
API usage expanded with automation, cloud native architectures, and AI driven workflows. Jeff described forgotten endpoints, overly permissive service accounts, zero visibility into east west API traffic, and logic abuse hidden in normal patterns. Payloads carried large amounts of context, making API activity a heavy and under monitored attack surface.
2026 Prediction: API behavior monitoring becomes nonnegotiable.
Teams will adopt gateway logging, API behavior modeling, and scoring for service accounts. API traffic will be treated with the same scrutiny as user activity.
2025 Trend 6: Machine Identities Became a Real Threat Vector
Shadow AI and autonomous code creation emerged as legitimate risks. Jeff highlighted scenarios where scripts rewrote themselves and internal agents made access decisions without human awareness. Automated traffic constantly shifted, and anomalies were difficult to detect. Teams lacked inventory and baselines for machine actors.
2026 Prediction: Machine identity governance becomes standard.
Teams will build inventories of non human actors, baseline their behavior, and detect drift over time. Machine identities will be monitored with the same rigor as human accounts.
2025 Trend 7: Smart Data Replaced Big Data as the Future Direction
Organizations began to challenge the idea of collecting everything. Jeff emphasized intentional collection, early enrichment, and use case aligned telemetry. Without enrichment, data remained just noise. AI also became a validator for data value, helping analysts confirm whether captured logs told a coherent story.
2026 Prediction: Data strategy becomes selective and purpose built.
Teams will focus on logs that support investigation flow, entity centric analysis, and cost predictable retention.
2026: Precision Replaces Volume
2025 revealed the limits of unlimited ingest, sprawling dashboards, rising cloud cost, and AI without guardrails. 2026 will reward teams that prioritize clarity, repeatability, and governed AI.
Security operations are moving toward precise data, structured investigations, and supervised automation. The goal is not more information. The goal is faster confidence.
Explore how Graylog helps teams prepare for a more precise and more disciplined 2026.
