Market research highlights security leaders' perspectives on meeting increasing workloads and how much AI plays a role
BOSTON and DUBLIN, March 11, 2025 -- Tines, the leader in AI-powered workflows, in partnership with AWS, announced the publication of the IDC White Paper, Voice of Security 2025: Security Leaders' Perspectives on AI Adoption, Team Performance, and Job Satisfaction, which examines job satisfaction and outputs among security teams, how automation and AI are improving the lives of security leaders and the hurdles they encounter with current tooling.
The IDC White Paper, Voice of Security 2025 surveyed over 900 security decision makers across the United States, Europe and Australia, finding 60% of security teams are small, with fewer than 10 members. Despite their size, 72% report taking on more work over the past year, and an impressive 88% are meeting or exceeding their goals.
According to the research, security leaders are bullish on AI – 98% are embracing it and a mere 5% believe AI will replace their job outright. The data also highlights security leaders' perspectives on the value of leveraging AI and automation to eliminate business siloes, with nearly all leaders seeing the potential to connect these tools across security, IT (98%), and DevOps (97%) functions. However, this enthusiasm coexists with notable concerns and frustrations: 33% of respondents are worried about the time required to train their teams on AI capabilities, while 27% cite compliance as a key blocker. Other hurdles include AI hallucinations (26%), secure AI adoption (25%), and slower-than-expected implementation (20%).
"Challenges in the cybersecurity industry are ever present and ever changing" said Matt Muller, field CISO, Tines. "Security professionals, who already face an unprecedented threat landscape in 2025, are met with the daunting task to integrate AI across their workflows. Our research shows that security teams are stepping up. However, organizations must take a flexible approach to automation and AI to ensure it remains secure and effective."
Tech stacks are adequate, but functionality gaps persist
One-third of respondents are satisfied with their team's tools, but many see potential for improvement. Most security teams (55%) typically manage 20 to 49 tools, while 23% use fewer than 20, and 22% use 50 to 99. Regardless of the number of tools, 24% of respondents struggle with poor integration, while 35% feel their stack lacks key functionality. The challenge lies not just in having the right tools, but in ensuring they work in harmony to reduce complexity and boost performance.
"Siloed automation across departments complicates managing security programs and creates vulnerabilities, especially as less technical employees adopt these technologies," said Christopher Kissel, research vice president, Security & Trust Products, IDC Research. "The security leaders we surveyed are strongly in favor of embracing shared automation between security and closely-knit business units like IT and DevOps to improve collaboration, strengthen security posture, streamline operations, and reduce complexity."
Other key findings from the IDC White Paper, Voice of Security 2025 include:
- If security leaders gained time through automation or AI, 43% would use it to focus more on security policy development, 42% on training and development, and 38% on incident response planning
- Most (83%) of security leaders report having a healthy work-life balance, but only 72% can perform their jobs without working extended hours, suggesting that such sacrifices have become an accepted part of the role for many
For more information, visit the Tines website to access the full IDC White Paper, sponsored by Tines in partnership with AWS, Voice of Security 2025, doc #US53204125, March 2025. To delve deeper into insights gathered in the paper, register to join Matt Muller, Field CISO, Tines and Cheryl Cage, Principal Security Strategist, AWS on March 26, 2025 for a live readout.
Research Methodology
IDC captures insights from 900+ security leaders across the US, Europe, and Australia, uncovering what drives job satisfaction and high performance within security teams (see Methodology). It examines how automation and AI are helping teams tackle increasingly complex challenges and whether their extensive tech stack is typically simplifying or complicating their jobs. It also highlights where teams are finding genuine success with AI, where they feel its current potential falls short, and how automation and AI fit into their plans for a rapidly evolving future.
About Tines
Co-headquartered in Dublin and Boston, Tines offers the only workflow platform that delivers powerful automation and orchestration straight into the hands of any member of your organization. Tines brings an impact-first approach to all teams, securely running thousands of mission-critical workflows per day across a diverse range of customers, including Canva, Databricks, Elastic, Kayak, Mars, McKesson and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The company has raised $146.2M in funding to date from investors including Felicis, Addition, Accel, Blossom Capital and Lux Capital. To learn more about Tines, visit www.tines.com.
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