Everbridge 360 is a critical event management platform that strengthens resilience by helping you detect threats earlier, respond faster, and improve continuously. The Professional version of Everbridge 360 provides advanced communication tools and mobile safety features to enhance capabilities, protect your workforce, and ensure smooth operations during emergencies.

This article originally appeared in International Security Journal

Ask any chief security officer how they protect their enterprise, and a security operations center (SOC) will often be one of the first things they mention. 

The SOC has long been viewed as a necessary fixture – the nerve center for threat monitoring and crisis response. But as our operating environments evolve, so should our strategies. For many organizations, especially those balancing complex risks and finite resources, it’s worth asking: Does the traditional SOC still make sense? 

Before anyone misunderstands – this is not about questioning the value of protecting people, data, and assets. It’s about being open to how we do it. Today, we have options. Options that offer the same, if not greater, levels of capability without the limitations of physical infrastructure.

The traditional SOC has its merits. Centralized operations, dedicated teams and real time situational awareness.  These have all served organizations well. I’ve worked in plenty of environments where a physical SOC was not only effective but necessary.

However, as someone who has spent a career assessing risk, I can tell you that static, brick-and-mortar solutions come with their own vulnerabilities – and, at times, may not be the best fit. Consider the challenges: 

• Cost – physical SOCs require significant capital – equipment, facilities, and staffing. For some organizations it’s simply not sustainable.  
• Resilience – a fixed location, by definition, is exposed to geographic and environmental risks.  
• Scalability – expanding capacity, adding capabilities or adapting to changing threats can be slow and expensive when you’re tied to a physical footprint. 

The case for a digital SOC 

A digital SOC addresses many of these limitations head-on. By leveraging cloud-native platforms and purpose-built technology, we can deliver the same – an often superior – level of security without being bound by four walls. Here’s where digital SOCs stand out: 

• Cost-effective without cutting corners – you don’t have to sacrifice quality for efficiency. Cloud-based platforms allow you to build scalable, full-featured security operations without investing heavily in physical infrastructure. 
• Operational continuity – a digital SOC is resilient by design. It is immune to localized disruptions. Your team can monitor and respond from wherever they are and if you structure it correctly, there is no single point of failure. 
• Integrated capabilities – today’s platforms do more than detect threats. They integrate crisis management, travel risk, communications and intelligence into a cohesive system. What once required multiple systems – and often multiple teams – can now be streamlined. 
• Speed and precision through AI – AI has real utility here. Not the buzzword variety, but targeted capabilities that help detect, analyze and respond to threats faster. AI doesn’t replace your team – it makes them better. It brings scale, speed and precision that would be impossible to replicate manually.  
• Future-ready – as threats evolve, so should your strategy. A digital SOC gives you the flexibility to adapt quickly, scale as needed and adjust your approach without waiting for the next capital investment cycle.   

A balanced view

Like any solution, digital SOCs aren’t perfect. Integration, team alignment and vendor selection all require careful attention. And some organizations – particularly those with highly sensitive operations – may still require a physical presence. This is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.

But what is clear, is that clinging to the traditional SOC model out of habit is no longer a viable strategy. security has always been about resilience, adaptability, and smart resource management. Digital SOCs allow us to embody those principles more effectively.

Rethinking the mission

At the end of the day, your SOC – physical, digital, or hybrid – is a means to an end. Its job is to ensure your people, assets, and operations are protected. How you do that should reflect the realities of the treat landscape you face today, not the one we faced 15 years ago.  

Security leaders need to be open to re-examining long-held assumptions. Not every organization needs to build a command center. But every organization does need the ability to know what’s happening, respond decisively, and keep improving. That’s what matters.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming industries, and critical event management (CEM) is no exception. Yet, misconceptions about AI often overshadow its true potential to revolutionize how organizations manage risks, disasters, and disruptions. These myths have sparked skepticism and confusion, leaving many uncertain about AI’s true role in CEM.

This blog addresses the top 10 myths surrounding AI in risk intelligence and crisis management. By separating fact from fiction, we’ll reveal how AI empowers organizations to make smarter, faster, and more resilient decisions. 

1. Automation removes human control over crisis management

Reality: AI enhances human decision-making. It doesn’t replace leadership; it provides faster, more accurate insights so decision-makers can act with confidence. A study found that organizations using AI to automate cybersecurity tasks reduced the potential for human error, allowing leadership to focus on strategy rather than firefighting.  

2. AI can’t improve decision-making in crisis situations  

Reality: AI accelerates response times by automating threat detection, response orchestration, and message dissemination. With AI, decision-makers get both speed and confidence, ensuring they act on the right intelligence at the right time.  

3. AI in risk intelligence is just hype  

Reality: Everbridge delivers risk intelligence 11 minutes faster using AI-powered automation. AI enables hyper-local insights, scales analysis beyond human capacity, and provides accurate, real-time risk assessment that decision-makers can trust. 

4. AI in CEM is too complex and expensive for organizations to implement  

Reality: Everbridge AI is purpose-built for ease of use. Customers don’t need data scientists – AI streamlines ORCA rule creation, incident response workflows, and resilience planning, ensuring fast implementation and immediate value. AI-powered CEM solutions integrate seamlessly with existing business operations. More importantly, the cost of implementation is far lower than the cost of a single major downtime incident. For every $1 invested in proactive resilience, $7 is saved in avoided losses (US Chamber).  

5. AI in CEM is just about speed – it’s not actionable  

Reality: Everbridge AI doesn’t just accelerate processes – it provides precision, direction, and context. Our AI-powered platform helps organizations move from reactive crisis response to proactive resilience by automating the full CEM lifecycle. Everbridge is the only provider offering full-lifecycle AI-powered CEM, built specifically to handle physical and digital events with decision-ready risk intelligence.  

6. Businesses that rarely experience major disruptions don’t need automation   

Reality: The frequency of critical events has skyrocketed. Cyberattacks have increased by 47% year-over-year (Q1 2025, Check Point Research), and supply chain disruptions are up 88% since 2020 (Resilinc). Organizations that plan ahead with automation avoid being caught off guard and significantly reduce financial risk.  

7. Crisis response can be handled manually  

Reality: Manual processes lead to delays, confusion, and financial losses. The global average breach cost fell by 9% to USD 4.44 million, largely thanks to faster detection and containment aided by security teams and AI. However, the United States bucked this trend, with its average breach cost rising 9% to USD 10.22 million due to higher regulatory fines and detection expenses.  

8. Only tech companies need AI-powered risk management

Reality: Every industry faces disruptions—retail, healthcare, finance, logistics. In the manufacturing sector alone, unexpected downtime costs businesses an estimated $50 billion per year (Forbes). AI-powered CEM helps all industries mitigate operational risks and avoid catastrophic losses.  

9. Everbridge AI is just another automation tool  

Reality: Everbridge has invested $1B+ in AI, decision-ready risk intelligence, and automation, making it the industry’s most advanced AI-driven CEM solution. Our patented AI-enabled playbooks and risk intelligence network ensure that organizations not only react faster but build long-term resilience.  

10. AI in CEM is a future concept, not a reality  

Reality: Everbridge High Velocity CEM™ already integrates AI for:  

• AI-assisted BC/DR Planning – Automating plan creation and impact analysis. 
• AI-powered risk intelligence – Scaling global risk monitoring and hyper-local threat detection. 
• AI-authored alerts & templates – Reducing response time by automating message generation. 
• AI-enabled insights & playbooks – Automating best-practice response strategies. 
• AI-driven post-incident analysis – Improving future resilience planning with historical insights. 

Conclusion

The myths surrounding AI in critical event management can cloud its immense potential. When deployed effectively, AI doesn’t just provide speed—it empowers organizations with accuracy, automation, and actionable intelligence to prepare for, respond to, and recover from critical events. Everbridge High Velocity CEM stands as the only full-lifecycle, AI-powered solution capable of addressing today’s complex risks with precision and scale.

The Everbridge Risk Intelligence Monitoring Center (RIMC) has designated the conflict between India and Pakistan a ‘special event’. This ensures complete and comprehensive coverage of the developing situation from a risk intelligence perspective.

The Everbridge RIMC analysts will have an enhanced focus on the conflict and will produce all information available in real time for customers – including updates on damage to infrastructure, travel implications and military operations. Our tactical resolution team has already produced multiple layers/KMLs detailing the planned blackouts surrounding Indian infrastructure, troop movements and drone missile strike locations.

Everbridge Response and Service Continuity Update – Guidance for Customers with Personnel in India

Source: Everbridge RIMC (May 9, 2025)

If your organization has personnel in or traveling to India or the surrounding area, we want to assure you that Everbridge is actively monitoring the situation as tensions escalate in the India-Pakistan region. At this time, there is no impact to Everbridge services, but we are taking proactive steps to protect staff, ensure operational continuity, and support customers who may be affected.

As part of our crisis response protocols, Everbridge has: 

• Activated our Crisis Management Team, which is meeting regularly 
• Reviewed support coverage and delivery infrastructure 
• Verified that our systems are resilient and not dependent on any single region 

We also want to take this opportunity to reinforce the importance of multi-modal communication during volatile events. In certain scenarios – such as regional conflicts or government-imposed restrictions – SMS or voice services may be delayed or disrupted. Everbridge supports a variety of delivery channels including email, app push notifications, desktop alerts, and phone calls, allowing for greater reach and redundancy when speed and reliability are critical. 

We will continue to monitor developments closely. Should there be any changes to service availability or delivery to affected areas, you will be notified immediately as an Everbridge customer. 

If you have any concerns or questions, please don’t hesitate to contact your Everbridge account representative. 

Anytime there is a major event—outages, weather situations, or things of that nature—we use Everbridge Mass Notification.