AIR raises $50M for AI agent discovery and vetting platform

Perplexity launched hybrid compute for its Computer platform, allowing a single AI agent to split work between cloud-based frontier models and locally-running open-weight models on Apple silicon Macs. Sensitive data is routed to the local machine via a trained PII classifier called a Privacy Gate, ensuring confidential information never leaves the device while the agent maintains task context. The feature is available today for enterprise customers and Pro/Max subscribers on macOS 15 or later.

NVIDIA and CrowdStrike announced SafeMind, an agentic cybersecurity system that pairs CrowdStrike's defensive models built on NVIDIA Nemotron with proprietary harnesses designed to automate threat response. The system operates in a continuous coevolution loop where offensive and defensive AI challenge each other to improve security posture. CrowdStrike also launched Falcon IQ for agentic workload automation and expanded its Guardian AI safety solution, addressing what CEO George Kurtz called a critical gap where attackers had frontier AI capabilities but defenders did not.

Identity and permissions alone are insufficient to secure enterprise AI agents, according to Box's CISO Heather Ceylan. Autonomous agents can exploit legitimate access to cause unintended damage at scale and speed that humans cannot match. Enterprise AI security must evolve beyond access controls to include execution governance, with dynamic permissions that scope access to specific tasks and steps rather than broad standing grants.

Autonomous AI agents operating in production environments require a three-layer security architecture spanning infrastructure, network, and control plane rather than relying on single-point controls like prompt guardrails. Oscar Wahlberg of Nutanix argues that traditional application-level security cannot contain risks unique to agentic systems, such as agents misusing granted credentials or hallucinating dangerous actions. The defense-in-depth approach divides security responsibilities across hardware trust, dynamic network governance, and centralized control to address distinct categories of risk.