Can AI Let You Jump SOC Maturity Levels? (Spoiler: Only the Boring Half)

Back in my analyst days , I built maturity models for a SOC (2018), a SIEM (2018), vulnerability management (2017) and threat intel (201?) Later, just for fun, I cooked up a simple SOAR adoption maturity model (2022). All of them were vaguely CMM-shaped: you start ad hoc, you get defined, you get measured, you get optimizing, magic! The ordering was not decorative.

Each level existed because the one below it produced something the next level needed. Largely, you cannot jump levels, and if you do jump, you land in clown realm .

this is how Gemini imagines this blog 2026, now the pitch has changed. With AI (agentic, of course!) , the story goes, a low maturity SOC can leap to maturity Level 3 or 4 “because AI”. No slog through the “defined process” desert, no “organic” growth through stages. Buy the agents, skip the years!