What Is AI-Assisted Threat Hunting? From Typing Queries to Typing Sentences
What is AI-assisted threat hunting? Type a plain-language sentence and AI generates the query, with a real demo example and why humans still review first.
What Is AI-Assisted Threat Hunting? From Typing Queries to Typing Sentences
Traditional threat hunting means writing specialized queries (field:value, AND/OR, wildcards) with the right syntax before you can even search anything — analysts who are new to the job often take a long time before they can write complex queries fluently. AI-Assisted Threat Hunting changes that starting point — type what you're looking for as a plain-language sentence, and let AI turn it into a query for you.
This piece walks through the actual feature in zcrSIEM, how it works, and why it's not just "AI writes it, then runs it."
A real example from zcrSIEM's Threat Hunting page
On zcrSIEM's Threat Hunting page there's a button labeled "Describe in plain English," with the description spelled out clearly: "AI turns your description into a hunt query — you always review and edit it before running."
Real example prompts built into the system:
- "powershell downloading a file from the internet"
- "rdp logins by an administrator account"
- "dns lookups to a suspicious top-level domain"
- "processes spawned by microsoft word"
Type a sentence like one of these and hit Translate, and the system generates a properly-formed query (field:value, operators, wildcards) automatically. An analyst who isn't fluent in query syntax can start hunting immediately.
The key point: AI translates, it doesn't decide for you
This is worth stating clearly — this feature is AI-assisted, not fully agentic. AI's job here is strictly translating plain language into a query. The analyst still has to:
- Review the query AI generated — before running it for real, check whether the fields and logic match what was actually intended
- Edit it if needed — if the AI's translation isn't quite right, adjust the query directly in the same box
- Decide what happens next — whatever the search turns up, the analyst is still the one interpreting it and deciding on the next step
Keeping this boundary matters a lot — threat hunting is fundamentally about searching for the unknown. If AI were left to decide everything on its own with no human review, the risk is missing exactly the thing the AI wasn't trained to look for.
Why this actually helps with the staffing shortage
One of the most pressing problems for Thai SOC teams is the talent shortage: as of 2024, Thailand faced a gap of over 20,000 cybersecurity professionals, and a lot of organizations end up relying on junior analysts who aren't yet fluent in complex query languages. AI-assisted threat hunting closes that skill gap directly — newer analysts can start hunting for threats faster, without months of query-language training first.
Signs your team needs this feature
- New analysts take a long time to get fluent writing complex queries
- Your team has a clear idea of what they want to search for, but doesn't know the exact syntax for the system in use
- Most of an analyst's time goes into writing and fixing queries rather than analyzing the results
This feature is part of a bigger picture — see how agentic AI works together across the SOC in What Is Agentic AI in the SOC?, and see the automation side of it in How Agentic Automation Works in SOAR.
zcrSIEM has this ready to use today
zcrSIEM ships with AI-assisted threat hunting and a hunt library for saving and reusing queries, covering MITRE ATT&CK context and connected to the full investigation workflow in one platform.
If you want to know how much time this could save your team's hunting workflow, check the zcrSIEM pricing.
Get in touch
Want to know how much AI-assisted threat hunting could help the team you already have? Our team offers a free consultation.
Technical implementation
Separate the natural-language request from the query that will actually run. Store the prompt, generated query, parser/validator result, time window, data sources, and analyst approval as one reviewable record. Start read-only, enforce a time bound, and reject queries outside the authorised scope.
Sources
- Fortinet — 2024 Global Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report — reports that 70% of the 1,850 IT and cybersecurity decision-makers surveyed across 29 locations, Thailand among them, agree the cybersecurity skills shortage creates additional risks for their organizations; the report has no Thailand-only breakout
- ISC2 — ISC2 Partners with Thailand's NCSA to Strengthen Cybersecurity Workforce — confirms a 3.37M-person cybersecurity workforce gap across the APAC region, which Thailand is part of
- ResearchAndMarkets — Thailand Managed Security Services Market Forecast and Competition Analysis Report 2025 — reports that, as of 2024, Thailand faced a gap of over 20,000 cybersecurity professionals