Global IT services and consulting provider
Wipro is adding an AI agent from startup
Simbian to its managed security services, the latest step in the industry in folding the quickly emerging technology into cybersecurity operations.
This week, the two companies announced that Wipro will offer Simbian’s AI SOC Agent technology as part of its Cybershield portfolio of AI-powered security services. In addition, Wipro has made an investment in Simbian – which
came out of stealth in April 2024 with $10 million in seed money – and is joining Simbian’s partner program.
Simbian, based in Mountain View, California,
launched its first AI agents – including one for security operations centers (SOCs) – in October 2024.
The collaboration will allow Wipro to use Simbian’s autonomous SOC agent to address the needs of SOCs, which are dealing with increasing complexities resulting from cyberthreats. The aim is to automate and accelerate a range of security operations, threat detection, and response, with the agent autonomously investigating and responding to alerts.
It improves SOC accuracy through its ability to learn from the knowledge in Simbian’s Context Lake technology, a repository that collects telemetry, ticket history, asset intelligence, and other data shared between Simbian’s SOC Agent and other agents for threat hunting, vulnerability remediation, and continuous threat exposure management (CTEM).
Having the SOC Agent integrated into Wipro’s Cybershield offerings will lower costs, improve efficiencies, and reduce the mean times to respond and resolve for organizations and MSSPs that use Wipro’s services, according to the companies.
Adopting Agents for Security
Such benefits are driving the
adoption of agentic AI in cybersecurity, according to Simbian Chief Product Officer
Sumedh Barde.
“The average enterprise has 75 security tools,” Barde told MSSP Alert. “Most of these tools do well on shining light on problems, but they end up creating busywork for security operations professionals, from deploying, configuring, and stitching together those tools to reviewing findings and filtering out noise from signal.”
This takes time away from shutting down security risks, he said, adding that the size and complexity of IT environments and threats grow every year, which means the busywork grows as well. AI-fueled automation, such as AI agents, reduce that by allowing technology to handle mundane tasks handled by humans.
“It's still early days for the market, but it is moving faster than previous cycles,” Barde said. “SecOps teams have no choice other than embracing AI agents, because attackers armed with AI are amping up both the pace and complexity of attacks. In 2024, organizations were dipping their toes in AI agents for security. In year 2025, large organizations are adopting AI SOC agents. In another year, I expect the question will flip to, ‘Why are you NOT using an AI SOC yet?’”
Wipro Signals a Shift
Wipro, which he called a fairly mature MSSP with significant investments already in automating security operations, is learning that the traditional – non-AI – automation tools can’t keep pace with the growing complexity of newer threats. It’s a lesson that others can learn.
“This is a clear sign for others with less automation muscle to take the blinders off and realize that if you are not embracing self-learning AI to continuously automate the most common SecOps tasks day after day, you are automatically falling behind attackers as well as industry peers,” Barde said.
Other security vendors also are
introducing agents for security. For example, earlier this year,
ReliaQuest rolled out its
GreyMatter Agentic Teammates, AI agents for such roles as threat analyst, detection engineer, threat hunter, and IT security engineer.
Promise and Peril
AI agents hold a lot of promise for cybersecurity teams, which face an ongoing shortage of skilled talent coupled with challenges like escalating alerts numbers, according to
David Reber, chief security officer for
Nvidia, a key player in the AI space.
“Agentic AI systems can perceive, reason, and act autonomously to solve complex problems,” Reber
wrote in a blog post. “They can also serve as intelligent collaborators for cyber experts to safeguard digital assets, mitigate risks in enterprise environments and boost efficiency in security operations centers. This frees up cybersecurity teams to focus on high-impact decisions, helping them scale their expertise while potentially reducing workforce burnout.”
In a
column for the World Economic Forum,
Nataly Kremer, chief product officer for
Check Point Software, wrote that AI agents will be key in switching the advantage from attackers to defenders. Agents can respond to threats faster than humans, collaborate across environments, and learn from a single intrusion attempt to more proactively defend against emerging threats.
That said, agents also come with risks, Kremer wrote. Key among them is that threat actors will also use AI agents in highly targeted attacks that can evolve in real time, executing without human input and bypassing traditional defenses.
“When both attackers and defenders operate at microsecond intervals, the nature of cyber conflict transforms,” she wrote. “The line between shield and sword has never been thinner.”
A Tool for MSSPs
SMBs are increasingly outsourcing their security operations to MSSPs, and even larger organizations are sending some of the busywork to MSSPs or are using them to close a gap in staffing, he said.
Given that MSSPs are growing in size and are taking on a variety of tasks, even they lack skilled security personnel, much less quickly train the ones they do have.
“This hinders MSSPs' business growth,” Simbian’s Barde said. “AI Agents are the ticket to plugging this gap. They scale dynamically as the volume grows. Additionally, it often takes one mistake for an organization to be dissatisfied with their MSSP and fire them. This, coupled with increasing complexity of threats, is making MSSPs explore AI.”
AI agents complement the humans working at MSSPs, boosting the quality of services they provide and improving customer satisfaction, he said.
