Endpoints are the most attacked and most data-rich layer in enterprise infrastructure, yet defense continues to lag. AI has accelerated the threat timeline: what once took days now takes minutes. The gap between how fast attacks move and how fast organisations respond is widening, and the reasons are structural, not tactical. Endpoint detection and response breaks down not at the tool level but beneath it — siloed telemetry, multiple overlapping tools, each with its own data model, forcing analysts to manually correlate context across consoles before any response decision can be made. By that point, the window has closed. Closing the speed gap requires a unified, normalised endpoint data foundation — asset state, vulnerability exposure, and threat context continuously correlated in a single plane. When that exists, AI earns its place: accelerating triage, shortening the detection-to-remediation window, matching threat speed with response speed.