Agentic AI for Cybersecurity: A Meta-Cognitive Architecture for Governable Autonomy

Abstract: Contemporary AI-driven cybersecurity systems are predominantly architected as model-centric detection and automation pipelines optimized for task-level performance metrics such as accuracy and response latency. While effective for bounded classification tasks, these architectures struggle to support accountable decision-making under adversarial uncertainty, where actions must be justified, governed, and aligned with organizational and regulatory constraints. This paper argues that cybersecurity orchestration should be reconceptualized as an agentic, multi-agent cognitive system, rather than a linear sequence of detection and response components. We introduce a conceptual architectural framework in which heterogeneous AI agents responsible for detection, hypothesis formation, contextual interpretation, explanation, and governance are coordinated through an explicit meta-cognitive judgement function. This function governs decision readiness and dynamically calibrates system autonomy when evidence is incomplete, conflicting, or operationally risky. By synthesizing distributed cognition theory, multi-agent systems research, and responsible AI governance frameworks, we demonstrate that modern security operations already function as distributed cognitive systems, albeit without an explicit organizing principle. Our contribution is to make this cognitive structure architecturally explicit and governable by embedding meta-cognitive judgement as a first-class system function. We discuss implications for security operations centers, accountable autonomy, and the design of next-generation AI-enabled cyber defence architectures. The proposed framework shifts the focus of AI in cybersecurity from optimizing isolated predictions to governing autonomy under uncertainty.