A context-aware, AI-driven load balancing framework for incident escalation in SOCs

SOCs face growing challenges in incident management due to increasing alert volumes and the complexity of cyberattacks. Traditional rule-based escalation models often fail to account for the workload of the analyst, the severity of the incident, and the organizational context. This paper proposes a context-aware, AI-driven load balancing framework for intelligent analyst assignment and incident escalation. Our framework leverages large language models (LLMs) with retrievalaugmented generation (RAG) to evaluate incident relevance and historical assignments. A reinforcement learning (RL)-based scheduler continuously optimizes incident-to-analyst assignments based on operational outcomes, enabling the system to adapt to evolving threat landscapes and organizational structures. Planned simulations in realistic SOC environments will compare the model with traditional rule-based models using metrics such as Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR), workload distribution, and escalation accuracy. This work highlights the potential of AIdriven approaches to improve SOC performance and enhance incident response effectiveness.