PwC launched an AI-driven, unified detection-and-response managed security service on Wednesday, enabled by Google Security Operations. The announcement follows PwC’s three-year, $400 million collaboration investment with Google Cloud to modernize cybersecurity operations, unveiled in January. The offering targets smaller and mid-sized enterprises that wouldn't typically turn to a big consulting firm for cybersecurity.

“This is not an old-school cyber-managed service offering that requires a lot of people, time and infrastructure to set up,” PwC’s Partner, Global and US Managed Services Leader, Tim Canonico told Channel Dive from the Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas. “We're leveraging Google’s SecOps platform and building agents to do a lot of the work that would typically require large-scale teams to operate.”

Canonico said the service features the full stack of cybersecurity services on one platform and uses agentic AI workflows bolstered by Google Cloud’s advanced security operations platform. This includes threat-identifying agents that can quickly sniff out security threats, triage agents that can prioritize urgent issues from background alerts and mitigation agents that can search and identify solutions.

All this automation has human checkpoints, and Canonico says it helps create an efficient, low-cost cybersecurity service with 24/7 monitoring, detection and response.

“We’ve packaged PwC’s dedicated expertise, taken all of our knowledge libraries on mitigation and detection, plus Google’s security operations technology and we’ve stitched it all together,” Canonico said. “For our clients, that means PwC is going to handle your security operations as an outsourced service, and we can do it better, faster, cheaper and more effectively than ever before.”

In partnership with Google Cloud, PwC aims to target enterprise customers ranging from mid-size to smaller companies — organizations that typically wouldn’t consider PwC for cybersecurity services.

The launch of this cybersecurity is just one step in the broader alliance between Google Cloud and PwC. On Wednesday, PwC separately announced its new Gemini Enterprise Center of Excellence (CoE), a specialized team that can be embedded into clients' AI initiatives using Google Cloud’s AI technologies. Where the managed security service is a packaged offering customers can buy, the CoE is the deeper infrastructure behind PwC's expanding Google Cloud practice, helping organizations move from AI pilots to production deployments at scale.

Both announcements point in the same direction: PwC is building out its bench strength and tooling to compete as both a managed services provider and consulting firm. For Canonico, the security service is the clear expression of that ambition.

“This is what we think the future of managed service really is,” Canonico said. “Our entire portfolio is about bringing deep domain knowledge and sector expertise to professionals around the world.”