After SOAR

Dispatches

12 dated notes, one vendor event each, newest first. Every note has its source and says what it changes for a buyer. A feed carries them too.

  1. 1 Mate Labs publishes the Blue City benchmark, without Mate in it 3 November 2026. It is a published method for testing agents, and it tests other agents. Mate's AI row does not change, and the accuracy figures stay unscored.
  2. 2 XSOAR 8.11 reaches end-of-life on 2026-11-13 3 November 2026. Pin your version against the page and write the date down. A team that cannot keep pace with a quarterly cycle has a reason to price a move now.
  3. 3 Sentinel leaves the Azure portal on 2027-03-31, with automation differences listed 3 November 2026. Sentinel owners have a dated project. Test timing-sensitive automation in Defender now, and decide whether a second automation product is worth the cost.
  4. 4 ThreatConnect's domain now redirects to Dataminr 3 November 2026. If you run ThreatConnect Playbooks, ask Dataminr in writing about support, roadmap and the product name, and keep an export of your playbooks.
  5. 5 Google updates its SecOps playbooks screen documentation 28 October 2026. The ZIP is a staging-to-production format, not a way out. If you audit playbook runs from exported data, confirm the case playbooks are in it.
  6. 6 Torq says IDC named it a Leader in its AI SOC MarketScape 20 October 2026. Torq's scores do not change. If an analyst report decides your shortlist, ask for the report and check how many of its inputs the vendors supplied.
  7. 7 Mate publishes CPR, its gate for autonomous actions 18 October 2026. Mate's approvals row stays at 8.5 for documented controls. The 97 percent figure is not scored, and CPR is described, not independently tested.
  8. 8 Google SecOps curated rules move to the GTI_IOC feed 12 October 2026. It changes the input to your playbooks, not the playbooks. Review custom rules before the next release cycle.
  9. 9 Splunk SOAR 8.7.0 drops Python 3.9 and adds a connector agent 2 September 2026. Any custom function written for Python 3.9 needs conversion before you upgrade. The agent features are Cloud only, so an on-prem team does not get them by upgrading.
  10. 10 Mate Gamebooks reach general availability 26 August 2026. Mate's authoring row scores 7.0 as partial, and its migration row 6.0. General availability makes the product testable, and it does not make the migration claim checkable. Ask which source formats it reads.
  11. 11 Microsoft updates its Splunk SOAR to Sentinel migration guide 12 August 2026. A Splunk SOAR team that already runs Sentinel gets a free checklist of equivalents. Budget the work as a rework of each playbook, and use the map to size it.
  12. 12 ServiceNow press report puts a Tier 2 SOC AI Specialist in December 5 August 2026. ServiceNow's AI row stays at 7.0 on the rubric, which scores documented features, and a scheduled feature is not one. Ask for limits and a release date in writing before you count it.