The promise of artificial intelligence for cybersecurity is that it will free security professionals at government agencies from menial tasks and allow them to focus on threat hunting and higher-level work. Another benefit that might get lost in the shuffle, but is no less important, is that automation in cybersecurity can actually lead to enhanced security for agencies.

Five governments are testing that proposition. Last month, the states of Arizona, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Texas, along with Maricopa County, Ariz., announced a partnership with the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to pilot a cybersecurity automation program.

The agencies will be using security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) tools, which “enable organizations to collect security-threat data through multiple sources and perform triage response actions significantly faster than with manual processes,” according to a Johns Hopkins press release. The hope is that it will enable the agencies to “quickly and broadly share information — in near real time — and leverage automation to prevent or respond to cyberattacks,” the release states.