One-third of Google’s first AI cybersecurity cohort is Israeli
The 11 selected companies are developing technologies to secure AI agents, protect enterprise data and automate cyber defense.
Google has chosen 11 Israeli and Israeli-founded cybersecurity startups to participate in its first AI-focused security program. Google’s Gemini Startup Forum: Cybersecurity selected 33 startups from around the world developing AI-driven security technologies.
The selected startups will work with artificial intelligence and cybersecurity specialists from Google DeepMind, Google Cloud and Wiz, gaining access to infrastructure, tools and AI capabilities as they develop technologies aimed at addressing emerging security threats.
The program reflects a broader transformation taking place in cybersecurity. Traditional security products were built primarily around protecting networks, endpoints and applications from human attackers. The next generation of cybersecurity companies is increasingly focused on securing AI agents, governing autonomous decision-making and using AI itself to identify and respond to threats.
Google organized the companies into six focus areas, including AI agent security and governance, application security, cloud and infrastructure protection, endpoint security, security operations automation and specialized security services.
One of the biggest emerging challenges is securing AI agents, software systems capable of taking actions independently, interacting with applications and accessing organizational data.
Several of the Israeli companies selected by Google are focused on this emerging category.
Capsule Security develops runtime protection and behavioral monitoring for autonomous AI agents. Its platform tracks agent activity, API calls and tool usage in real time to identify unauthorized actions and prevent data leakage across software-as-a-service applications and endpoints.
Onyx Security is developing an AI control platform designed to help organizations discover, manage and monitor autonomous AI agents. The company analyzes agent activity, tracks data flows and applies security and compliance policies based on context.
Another Israeli company, Glow, is focused on securing the broader enterprise environment in which AI tools operate. The company develops a workspace protection platform that combines endpoint, software and AI agent monitoring, using AI systems to map organizational software environments and identify unauthorized browser extensions and plugins.
The focus on AI agent security reflects concerns that organizations may deploy increasingly powerful systems without sufficient visibility into what those systems are doing, what data they are accessing and whether their actions align with company policies.
Other Israeli startups selected by Google are using AI to rethink established cybersecurity challenges.
Alt Security develops an autonomous penetration testing platform that uses AI agents to perform security assessments. The system automates reconnaissance, connects vulnerabilities to potential business risks and validates exploits in isolated environments.
In cloud security, Native provides a control platform for organizations operating across multiple cloud providers, including Google Cloud, AWS, Azure and Oracle. Its technology allows companies to simulate the impact of security policy changes before deploying them.
Qiz Security focuses on cryptography management, helping organizations track certificates, databases and source code while preparing for the transition to post-quantum encryption technologies.
Huskeys, another Israeli company selected for the program, develops technology designed to automatically optimize firewall configurations and adapt traffic filtering in real time.
The growth of AI has also increased concerns around protecting sensitive corporate information as employees adopt new tools and automated systems gain access to more data.
Several Israeli-founded companies in the cohort are focused on this challenge.
Bold Security develops endpoint security technology designed to protect organizations from data leakage and insider threats. The company runs data classification models directly on devices, allowing security policies to be enforced without relying on cloud processing.
Jazz is developing a data loss prevention platform that moves beyond traditional rules-based systems by analyzing user intent and business context to prioritize potential risks.
Orion Security focuses on tracking how data moves across endpoints, browsers and cloud applications. Its platform maps data movement to identify potential leakage risks without requiring organizations to manually define policies.
Although these three companies are listed by Google as U.S.-based, they were founded by Israeli entrepreneurs.
Another major area of development is the use of AI to help security teams manage the growing volume of alerts generated by modern digital environments.
Mate Security develops an AI-powered security operations platform that integrates with existing SIEM and SOAR systems. The technology analyzes alerts, maps relationships between digital assets and helps reduce false positives.
The company is targeting a long-standing challenge for cybersecurity teams: the growing gap between the volume of security events and the ability of human analysts to investigate them.
