Two Sides of the SOC: How ACS Unified Business and Technical Vision with Embed
Introduction
When Alexander Cybersecurity Solutions (ACS) set out to build a modern managed security service provider, its founders faced a familiar challenge: scaling world-class service to deliver outstanding cybersecurity services. They needed to serve clients faster, cut through security noise, and give their analysts room to think strategically instead of constantly firefighting.
Matt Alexander, ACS’s Co-Founder & CEO, came from the IT services world; Bryan Smith, the company’s technical leader and Co-Founder & CTO, brought deep experience from the intelligence and cybersecurity community. Together, they’ve built a lean, expert-driven MSSP that thrives by combining smart technology with human judgment. Here’s how they use Embed’s agentic security platform to keep that balance.
The Business Perspective
Q: What was happening at ACS before you started working with Embed?
Matt: We’d been in startup mode for a couple of years, small but growing fast. Our team was phenomenal, but like any young MSSP, we were limited by resources. Every time a user reported a phishing email, we had to validate, detonate, correlate, and remove it from inboxes manually. Even with solid tooling and training, our analysts were burning hours on repetitive triage.
Q: What were you looking for in a solution?
Matt: Something that could take the grunt work out without compromising quality. We weren’t looking to replace people; we wanted to make the people we had more effective. We wanted automation that could learn, adapt, and give us transparency into every decision.
Q: How did Embed fit that need?
Matt: Once a user hits ‘Report Phishing’ in Microsoft 365, it goes straight to Embed. The platform handles about 80% of what our analysts used to do manually, and they focus on the 20% that truly requires human judgment. It’s like having a tireless Tier 1 analyst who never sleeps but still shows their work.
Q: You mentioned ROI as something that stands out. What does that look like for you?
Matt: One of my favorite features in the platform is how it translates time saved into business value. We can show exactly how many analyst hours — and by extension, dollars — we save each month. That’s something executives understand immediately. It’s no longer just a technical win; it’s a business win.
Q: What impact has this had on your clients?
Matt: They get faster responses, fewer false positives, and more confidence in the process. Safe emails are returned quickly, and malicious ones are pulled from every inbox automatically. It’s a more professional, consistent experience, and it helps us prove our value every single day.
Q: How do you see this changing the future of your business?
Matt: It’s allowing us to scale without adding headcount. We can achieve more with less, without compromising quality. That’s the key. We’re a small team, but we’re extremely effective, and that’s helped us win business against much larger competitors.
The Technical Perspective
Q: What did you see in Embed that made you want to bring it in?
Bryan: I’ve been in this space for a long time, government, private sector, multiple SOCs, and I’ve seen the same problem repeat itself: tools that promise automation but still leave analysts drowning in noise. Early SOAR platforms were supposed to help, but they mostly automated playbooks. You still had to fine-tune every rule and babysit exceptions.
When I first saw what Embed was building, I could tell it was different. They were applying agentic AI in a way that actually reasoned through alerts, not just triggered scripts. It was clear this could take over that first-tier analysis in a way that made sense.
Q: What does that change look like in practice?
Bryan: It means I don’t have to keep a dashboard open all day. I can check in when I want to, not because I have to. That’s a huge shift. Instead of staring at a wall of alerts, we can spend time on proactive work, threat hunting, tuning detections, and advising clients. That’s where the real value is.
Q: Trust is always a concern in security, especially with AI. How did you get comfortable with it?
Bryan: Trust starts with the people behind the tech. How do they think about security and integrity? But it’s not just about relationships; the Embed technology itself is transparent. You can see every step, every inference. You know why it made a decision, and that’s huge.
Q: You mentioned in the interview that ‘what matters is improving the problem.’ What did you mean by that?
Bryan: A lot of the industry is chasing automation for automation’s sake. Everyone’s racing to bolt AI onto their product. But if you’re not improving how the work gets done, if you’re just moving the problem around, you’re not really solving anything. Embed actually improves the problem. It helps analysts think and act faster, with better context. That’s meaningful.
Q: What kind of competitive edge does this give ACS?
Bryan: A huge one. We’re always punching above our weight. Our clients expect enterprise-grade results, and with Embed we can deliver that with a small, specialized team. Focus reduces risk, and Embed is one of the platforms that helps us stay focused.
Q: Where do you see this technology heading next?
Bryan: It’s moving fast. I think agentic systems like Embed will reshape how SOCs operate. However, I also believe that the winners will be those who use AI responsibly to enhance, rather than replace, human judgment. That’s the approach we take, and it’s the one that’ll sustain long term.
Closing Thoughts
For both Matt and Bryan, the story of Embed at ACS is about balance, the meeting point between human expertise and intelligent automation. It’s about empowering analysts to think, not just react, and giving clients the confidence that every alert is handled with both speed and care.
