Autonomous Threat Detection Using Multi-Agent AI and LLM-Assisted Network Traffic Analysis

Abstract

Cybersecurity threats have evolved into sophisticated, automated attacks that challenge traditional defense mechanisms. This study proposes an autonomous threat detection framework integrating multi-agent AI architectures with Large Language Model (LLM)-assisted network traffic analysis to address the critical gap between signature-based reliability and machine learning-based adaptability. The framework comprises three interconnected layers: Multi-Agent Detection, LLM Interpretation, and Autonomous Response. Evaluation across three cybersecurity datasets (CIC-IDS2017, NSL-KDD, CIC-IDS2018) demonstrates superior performance: 96.8% detection accuracy, 4.2% false positive rate, 92.4% recall, 87ms inference latency, 4.3 explanation quality score, and 82.4% autonomous response rate, outperforming signature-based, single-agent ML, and centralized LLM baseline systems. Multi-agent consensus mechanisms reduced false positives by 38%, while LLM interpretation addressed black-box interpretability challenges. Federated learning enabled 5-minute adaptation to emerging threats. Results validate that integrating multi-agent AI with LLM semantics achieves accurate, scalable, interpretable, and autonomous threat detection, enabling practical deployment of autonomous cybersecurity systems with maintained accountability.

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