With several hundred vendors offering MDR services worldwide, it’s difficult to create an accurate short list of MDR providers worth considering for your organization. Yes, AI can create a list in seconds, but is the information trustworthy, or just more AI slop? Figuring it out takes time, which defeats the purpose. That’s why unbiased third-party evaluations are critical, like the 2026 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Managed Detection and Response Service for Midmarket*.

Customers ask me how many analysts the MDR team still needs. The question implies AI has already made the answer “smaller.” Unfortunately, the organizations asking this question are usually the same ones that have not yet solved their telemetry gaps, their unmanaged endpoints, or their MFA coverage. They want AI to close problems that AI cannot see.