In the modern AI threat management landscape, security operations teams face the possibility of defending against more than 7,000 password attacks per second. Against those odds, human analysts alone simply cannot keep pace.

Those immense stakes make automated threat management a necessity for modern enterprise resilience. By offloading “tier one” tasks like phishing triage to AI, security professionals can reclaim hundreds of hours each month to focus on preemptive threat pursuit, according to Scott Woodgate (pictured), general manager for threat protection at Microsoft Corp.

“Agents provide a real opportunity to take automation to the next level and fundamentally upskill the roles that people have so that [the] employment gap actually can be filled by the partnership between people and agents,” Woodgate said, departing from Microsoft’s estimate that millions of security jobs remain unfilled worldwide.

Woodgate spoke with theCUBE’s Christophe Bertrand at the RSAC 2026 Conference, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed AI threat management, the agentic workforce and the evolution of global intelligence sharing. (* Disclosure below.)

Advancing AI threat management and worker upskilling through agents

As organizations confront a global shortfall of cybersecurity talent, the focus has shifted from replacing workers to making existing teams more effective  — a transition that depends in part on broader, cross-border threat intelligence sharing, Woodgate explained.

“If you’re in a particular country, and all you knew was the threat intelligence within your country, you aren’t set up for the threats that often come from countries that are not yours,” he said. “This notion of collective defense or global sharing of threat intelligence is actually a critical piece for us to stay ahead of attackers, because [attackers] don’t respect our state boundaries.” 

While agents can improve security operations through speed, scale and automation, human practitioners must remain in control, taking on more of an oversight and orchestration role, Woodgate noted. The current evolution can be likened to the industry’s shift from on-premises security to the cloud, which broadened responsibilities and pushed teams toward higher-value work, he added.

“If you’re already currently doing this, there’s some good lessons from the transition to cloud security where actually getting out and using these things and seeing how they can help you upskill and uplevel your game and be more valuable is really important.” Woodgate said. “In this space, it really isn’t about my job, it’s about my effectiveness.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of RSAC 2026 Conference:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the RSAC 2026 Conference. Sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE