Today, I'm excited to announce a project we have been working on for a few years, a fundamental domain-specific breakthrough in how we protect and govern data in the age of AI. We're introducing the world's first Data Defense Engineer: superintelligence that autonomously secures every Data Journey from code to cloud runtime to AI output to 3rd parties.
We're living through a foundational transformation. For the first time in computing history, data isn't just passively stored information: it's becoming executable intelligence that directly shapes what software does. Data, its quality, distribution, attribution, volume, configurations, and provenance directly influence software behavior in ways raw code never did. Data isn't passive information —it's a non-deterministic instruction. This isn't an incremental change. It's a tectonic shift that renders traditional security approaches obsolete.
The new reality: Data as context, software as agent
Consider what's happening right now across every industry. Your customer service software doesn't just retrieve data anymore; it understands context and responds intelligently. Your financial systems don't just process transactions; they analyze patterns and make decisions. Your development tools don't just store code; they generate it, review it, and suggest improvements.
This is the era of agentic software. Applications that think, reason, and act with increasing autonomy and agency. And at the heart of every intelligent action is data: not passive data sitting in a database, but active data that flows through AI models, shapes decisions, and drives outcomes.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: compromised data anywhere means compromised intelligence everywhere.
When data becomes the context that shapes AI behavior, a breach isn't just about stolen records. It's about corrupted intelligence that can manipulate every decision your systems make at an unprecedented speed and scale. A poisoned dataset doesn't just leak information: it compromises the judgment of every AI model it touches.
Traditional security tools were built for a simpler world where data stayed put and software followed programmed deterministic instructions. They scan static snapshots, check boxes for compliance, and miss the dynamic reality of how data flows through modern architectures. They're like trying to secure a highway by photographing parked cars.
Why "better" isn't enough
Our competitors will tell you they're building "better" data security. Better scanning. Better discovery. Better dashboards. Higher classification accuracy. But better versions of the wrong approach still leave you blind to the risks that matter most.
We, at RelyanceAI, took a different path. We didn't try to improve legacy thinking: we rebuilt data security from first principles for the age of superintelligence.
Think of it as your Data Defense Engineer: an AI-native platform that works 24/7 to understand, monitor, and protect how your sensitive data flows through every system. Unlike human engineers who can only focus on one issue at a time, our Data Defense Engineer simultaneously tracks thousands of data journeys, learns from every interaction, and autonomously enforces policies at machine speed.
But here's what makes it truly revolutionary: you can simply ask it questions in plain English and get immediate answers. "Show me all customer data flowing to third-party AI services." "Which datasets are being used to train our recommendation model?" "Is our European user data staying within GDPR boundaries?" “Simulate the top 10 data attack paths for me?” Instead of hunting through dashboards for days or coordinating across multiple teams, you get precise answers in seconds.
While others focus on where data sits, we also map how data flows. While everyone scans storage, we trace journeys. While they provide point-in-time snapshots, we deliver real-time intelligence about how your most sensitive data moves through code, APIs, AI models, and third-party services.
This isn't about better DSPM. This is about creating something entirely new: your Data Defense Engineer that delivers dynamic data security posture management. Superintelligence that autonomously tracks every data journey from source code to AI output.
The three forces driving this transformation
First: Security and explainability are now architectural requirements
In the age of agentic AI, you can't bolt on security after the fact. When an AI system makes a loan decision, approves a medical treatment, or flags a security threat, stakeholders need to understand not just what decision was made, but how the underlying data influenced that choice.
Regulations like the EU AI Act aren't asking for better security; they're demanding explainable AI. That requires knowing the complete provenance of every piece of data that trains models or influences outputs. Static compliance reports can't answer these questions. You need real-time data lineage that connects every dot from collection to decision.
Second: The speed of innovation demands autonomous protection
Engineering teams deploy AI features daily. New models, new integrations, new data flows. Manual security reviews and governance processes can't keep pace. The only solution is intelligent automation that understands intent, predicts risks, and enforces policies without slowing innovation.
Your Data Defense Engineer learns how your organization actually uses data, understands the context behind every flow, and automatically flags anomalies. When you need answers, you can ask it directly: "What sensitive data is this new AI feature accessing?" or "Show me all data flows that violate our retention policy." No more waiting for reports or chasing down information across teams. It's like having a PhD-level information security expert who never sleeps, never misses a pattern, and can answer any question about your data instantly.
Third: The attack surface is now your intelligence
Traditional security focuses on preventing data theft. But when data becomes an executable context, the threat model changes completely. An attacker doesn't need to steal your data: they need to poison it. A single compromised dataset can corrupt the intelligence of every system it touches.
This is why we built our platform to track not just data movement, but data transformation. Every API call, every model inference, every processing step is mapped and monitored. Because in the age of AI, data integrity is intelligence integrity.
What this means for security leaders
CISOs and CIOs today face an impossible choice: enable rapid AI innovation or maintain security and compliance. Traditional tools force this trade-off because they can't keep up with the speed and complexity of modern data flows.
We've eliminated that trade-off. Our customers deploy AI confidently because they have a Data Defense Engineer providing complete visibility and control over how their data is used. They don't slow down innovation: they accelerate it with guardrails that work at the speed of code.
When Coinbase needed to govern financial data across their AI initiatives, they didn't want another scanning tool. They needed a platform that could track sensitive data in real-time as it flowed through machine learning pipelines. When Notion wanted to ensure customer data privacy in their AI features, they needed more than compliance reports: they required continuous monitoring of how data moves through their intelligent systems.
These aren't better solutions to old problems. These are new solutions to new issues that didn't exist before the advent of software intelligence.
The future is already here
Every day, more software becomes agentic. Every day, data becomes more contextual. Every day, the gap widens between what traditional security can see and what matters.
The companies that recognize this shift early (that rebuild their data security for the age of intelligence) will thrive. They'll innovate faster, operate more securely, and build more trustworthy systems than competitors stuck in legacy thinking.
The companies that don't - they'll wake up to discover that they've been guarding the wrong gates, while the real risks slipped unseen through their intelligent systems.
We're building your Data Defense for the next decade of computing. Because when every application thinks, every dataset matters, and every flow could change everything, you need superintelligence watching over your data.
The tectonic shift is here. The question isn't whether you'll adapt: it's whether you'll lead the transformation or get left behind by it.
