AI vs. AI: Prophet Security raises $30M to replace human analysts with autonomous defenders

Prophet Security, a startup growing autonomous synthetic intelligence programs for cybersecurity protection, introduced Tuesday it has raised $30 million in Collection A funding to speed up what its founders describe as a elementary shift from human-versus-human to “agent-versus-agent” warfare in cybersecurity.

The Menlo Park-based firm’s funding spherical, led by enterprise capital agency Accel with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, comes as organizations wrestle with an awesome quantity of safety alerts whereas subtle attackers more and more leverage AI to scale and automate their operations. Prophet’s strategy represents a marked departure from the “copilot” AI instruments which have dominated the market, as an alternative deploying absolutely autonomous brokers that may examine and reply to threats with out human intervention.

“Each safety operations group is confronted with a twin mandate of lowering danger whereas driving operational effectivity,” mentioned Kamal Shah, Prophet Safety’s co-founder and CEO, in an unique interview with VentureBeat. “Our Agentic AI SOC Platform addresses each challenges by automating guide, repetitive duties in safety operations with pace, accuracy and explainability.”

The funding announcement coincides with Prophet’s launch of what it calls the business’s most complete Agentic AI SOC Platform, increasing past its preliminary Prophet AI SOC Analyst to incorporate Prophet AI Threat Hunter and Prophet AI Detection Advisor. The platform represents a major evolution from conventional Safety Operations Middle (SOC) automation instruments, which usually depend on inflexible, pre-programmed playbooks.

Safety groups drowning in 960 each day alerts face unprecedented capability disaster

The cybersecurity business faces a disaster of capability and functionality. Shah, who beforehand served as CEO of container safety firm StackRox before its acquisition by Red Hat, skilled these challenges firsthand. In line with his observations, organizations obtain a median of 960 safety alerts each day, with as much as 40% going uninvestigated as a consequence of useful resource constraints.

“The primary criticism that I see from clients each single day is just too many alerts, too many false positives,” Shah defined. “If you consider the world that we reside in as we speak, on common, an organization will get 960 alerts a day from all the safety instruments that they’ve of their atmosphere, and 40% of these alerts are ignored as a result of they only don’t have the capability to go and examine all these alerts.”

The issue is compounded by a extreme scarcity of expert cybersecurity professionals. Shah factors to what he calls a important expertise hole, noting there are 5 million open positions in cybersecurity globally, making a state of affairs the place even organizations with price range to rent can not discover certified personnel.

Prophet’s answer instantly addresses this capability crunch. Over the previous six months, the corporate’s AI SOC Analyst has carried out greater than 1 million autonomous investigations throughout its buyer base, saving an estimated 360,000 hours of investigation time whereas delivering 10 instances quicker response instances and lowering false positives by 96%.

How autonomous AI brokers differ from reactive copilot programs reworking cybersecurity

The excellence between Prophet’s “agentic” AI and the copilot fashions deployed by bigger cybersecurity distributors like CrowdStrike, Microsoft, and Sentinel One is prime to understanding the corporate’s worth proposition. Conventional copilot programs require human analysts to provoke queries and interpret responses, basically serving as subtle search interfaces for safety information.

“Copilot is reactive,” Shah defined. “You’ve an alert are available and a safety analyst has to go and write questions, ask the query to say, hey, what does this imply? And it’s important to know what inquiries to ask. The analyst continues to be within the loop for each single alert that is available in as a result of they’re interacting with it.”

Against this, Prophet’s agentic AI proactively initiates investigations the second an alert is triggered, autonomously gathering proof, reasoning by means of the information, and reaching conclusions with out human intervention. The system paperwork each step of its investigation course of, creating an audit path that permits safety groups to grasp and confirm its reasoning.

“What Prophet AI is ready to do is instantly, as soon as an alert is triggered, it proactively goes and completes the investigation,” Shah mentioned. “Inside a matter of minutes, your investigation is full and it is aware of what inquiries to ask, and it’s been educated to behave like an professional analyst.”

Constructing enterprise belief by means of clear AI decision-making and information safety

Prophet’s system leverages a number of frontier AI fashions, together with choices from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others, deciding on probably the most acceptable mannequin for every particular activity. The corporate has constructed what Shah describes as an “evals framework” to make sure accuracy, repeatability, and consistency whereas stopping AI hallucinations—a important concern in safety contexts the place false info can result in inappropriate responses.

“In safety, you might be in a belief constructing train with the safety groups, and in the event you hallucinate, you’re going to lose belief and so they’re not going to make use of your product,” Shah emphasised. The corporate employs a retrieval-augmented era (RAG) structure mixed with rigorous analysis processes to keep up what Shah calls “a excessive bar for safety groups.”

Information privateness and safety characterize paramount issues for Prophet’s enterprise clients. The corporate employs a single-tenant structure making certain buyer information stays remoted, and maintains contractual agreements with AI mannequin suppliers stopping buyer information from getting used to coach or fine-tune fashions.

Early clients report dramatic effectivity positive aspects as AI handles 1000’s of safety alerts

Prophet’s buyer base contains Docker, which supplied a testimonial for the funding announcement. Tushar Jain, Docker’s EVP of Engineering and Product, famous that “Prophet AI is already serving to streamline components of our safety workflow, and we’re simply getting began. With the current launch of Menace Hunter and rising integration with our programs, we see a transparent path to quicker response instances, decreased noise, and a extra centered safety group.”

The corporate has additionally revealed case research demonstrating dramatic enhancements in SOC effectivity. Eric Wille, CISO at Cupboard Works, reported lowering his group’s alert quantity from 33,200 down to only six alerts requiring human consideration, successfully permitting his small group to function with the effectivity of a a lot bigger group.

“Prophet AI reduce our alert queue from 1000’s to dozens,” Wille mentioned in a video testimonial. “It’s a drive multiplier that removes investigation bottlenecks, improves analyst focus, and helps us reply to actual threats quicker.”

Rising cyber threats and evolving assault strategies drive demand for AI-powered protection

Prophet’s emergence happens in opposition to a backdrop of quickly evolving cyber threats. CrowdStrike’s 2025 Global Threat Report documented a 150% enhance in China-nexus cyber exercise and a 442% development in voice phishing operations, whereas noting that 79% of detected threats have been malware-free, making them tougher to establish by means of conventional signature-based detection strategies.

The corporate’s strategy to integration throughout current safety instruments offers a key aggressive benefit. Relatively than requiring organizations to exchange their present safety stack, Prophet integrates with current Safety Info and Occasion Administration (SIEM) programs, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platforms, and different safety instruments.

“If you happen to’ve acquired to go get 5 or 6 totally different copilots to make use of inside your group, it’s going to be very complicated,” Shah defined. “What clients are telling us is that, hey, I need an unbiased AI SOC platform that may assist me triage, examine and reply to alerts from all of my safety instruments, not only one or two.”

Accel’s preemptive funding indicators rising confidence in autonomous safety programs

Eric Wolford, Associate at Accel, emphasised the mix of technical innovation and confirmed market traction that drove the funding determination. “What stood out to us about Prophet wasn’t simply the technical ambition, however the real-world traction: they’re delivering autonomy and pace whereas displaying their work—a important differentiator in an business that runs on belief,” Wolford mentioned in an announcement.

Accel’s cybersecurity funding portfolio contains CrowdStrike, Tenable, and BlackPoint Cyber, offering the agency with deep experience in evaluating safety applied sciences. The preemptive nature of the funding spherical — Prophet was not actively searching for capital — underscores investor confidence within the firm’s trajectory.

The funding will primarily assist engineering enlargement and go-to-market acceleration as Prophet scales its platform capabilities. The corporate plans to proceed increasing its agentic AI platform, doubtlessly including new modules for added safety operations workflows.

Business consultants predict widespread adoption of AI brokers will reshape cybersecurity panorama

Prophet’s success displays broader developments reshaping cybersecurity. Deloitte’s 2025 cybersecurity forecasts predict widespread adoption of agentic AI programs, with 40% of enormous enterprises anticipated to deploy such programs of their SOCs by 2025. The consulting agency characterizes this shift as shifting from “automation that follows directions to automation that thinks.”

The corporate’s “position elevation” philosophy — enhancing moderately than changing human analysts — addresses issues about AI displacing cybersecurity professionals. Shah emphasised that automation ought to free analysts from repetitive duties to concentrate on higher-value safety work.

“This isn’t about eliminating jobs,” Shah mentioned. “It’s about making certain an analyst doesn’t need to spend time triaging and investigating alerts, as a result of who needs to try this all day, daily? As an alternative, they will concentrate on the 4% of points that actually matter to a corporation. They’re advancing their careers and doing extra higher-order safety work.”

As cyber threats proceed evolving and incorporating AI capabilities, the arms race between attackers and defenders more and more depends on technological sophistication moderately than human capability alone. Prophet’s strategy suggests a future the place cybersecurity turns into primarily a contest between AI programs, with human experience centered on strategic oversight and sophisticated decision-making.

The corporate’s means to display measurable enhancements in SOC effectivity whereas sustaining transparency and explainability positions it to seize market share as organizations grapple with the twin pressures of accelerating threats and protracted expertise shortages. With the brand new funding, Prophet Safety goals to speed up this transition, doubtlessly setting the usual for a way organizations defend in opposition to AI-powered assaults in an period the place the pace and scale of threats exceed human capability to reply manually.

However maybe probably the most telling indicator of this shift isn’t Prophet’s expertise or funding — it’s what occurred when Shah’s group wasn’t actively searching for funding. Accel approached them anyway, recognizing that in a world the place attackers launch AI-powered assaults at machine pace, the outdated playbook of human-driven protection isn’t simply inadequate — it’s out of date.