WitnessAI

WitnessAI

WitnessAI is an AI security and governance platform that lets enterprises see and control how employees, applications, and agents use AI. WitnessAI sits in the network path between users and language models, giving teams observability of AI activity, intent-based policy enforcement, and data and topic protection at millisecond latency. Founded in 2023, WitnessAI positions its Secure AI Enablement Platform as a confidence layer that makes both public and private LLMs safe to adopt. It targets security and governance leaders who want to allow AI tools rather than block them, while still stopping data leakage, prompt injection, and off-policy use across the organization.

Production credibility: Founded in 2023 by Rick Caccia (CEO; previously product and marketing leadership at Palo Alto Networks, Google, and Symantec, first CMO at Exabeam, and a product leader at ArcSight through its IPO) and Gil Spencer (CTO; founder of IronKey, acquired by Imation, and Marble Security, acquired by Proofpoint). Raised a $27.5M Series A announced May 2024, co-led by GV (Google Ventures) and Ballistic Ventures. At launch the company cited more than 20 design partners across multiple industries, with early production deployments beginning in 2024. The platform runs as an isolated, single-tenant cloud instance with customer-managed encryption keys, intercepting user-to-LLM traffic without device agents.

Key Features

• Network-path interception of AI traffic with no endpoint agent required
• Observability dashboard mapping which employees and apps use which AI models
• Intent-based policy engine to allow, redact, or block AI activity by user and use case
• Data and topic protection to stop sensitive data and off-limits subjects reaching LLMs
• Coverage for both public SaaS models and private/self-hosted LLMs
• Single-tenant deployment with customer-managed encryption keys for data isolation
• Millisecond-latency enforcement so guardrails don't slow user-facing AI

Ideal Use Case

A regulated enterprise wants staff to use chatbots and copilots safely, so it routes AI traffic through WitnessAI to log usage, redact sensitive data, and enforce policy on which models and topics are allowed.

How WitnessAI differentiates

WitnessAI differentiates on the network and identity layer: it watches how people actually use AI across the org rather than only filtering a single model's inputs and outputs. Compared with Virtue AI and Lakera, which emphasize red-teaming and inline model guardrails, WitnessAI leads with visibility and intent-based policy over employee AI usage. Against broad GRC suites like OneTrust, it is more operational and runtime-focused but does not handle the full sweep of privacy data-mapping or regulatory recordkeeping. The trade-off is that organizations needing deep adversarial model testing may pair it with a dedicated red-teaming tool.

FAQ

Q: What does WitnessAI do? A: WitnessAI provides AI security and governance by intercepting traffic between users and LLMs, giving enterprises visibility of AI use, intent-based policy control, and data and topic protection.

Q: Who founded WitnessAI? A: WitnessAI was founded in 2023 by Rick Caccia (CEO, ex-Palo Alto Networks, Google, and Exabeam) and Gil Spencer (CTO, founder of IronKey and Marble Security).

Q: How much has WitnessAI raised? A: WitnessAI raised a $27.5M Series A announced in May 2024, co-led by GV (Google Ventures) and Ballistic Ventures.

Q: Does WitnessAI work with private and self-hosted LLMs? A: Yes. The Secure AI Enablement Platform applies visibility and policy controls to both public SaaS models and private or self-hosted LLMs, running as an isolated instance with customer-managed encryption.

Q: WitnessAI vs Virtue AI: how do they differ? A: WitnessAI focuses on network-level visibility and policy over how employees use AI, while Virtue AI emphasizes automated red-teaming and real-time multimodal guardrails for the models and agents themselves.

tl;dr

WitnessAI is an AI security and governance platform that gives enterprises visibility and policy control over employee and agent AI use. Founded in 2023 by Rick Caccia and Gil Spencer, it raised a $27.5M Series A co-led by GV and Ballistic Ventures.

Related

Looking for more options? Browse the Security & Governance directory or read our best AI security tools listicle. WitnessAI is also tracked on Crunchbase.