As artificial intelligence becomes more deeply integrated into enterprise workflows, security teams are facing a growing set of challenges around the systems that support those deployments. Upwind is addressing that shift by acquiring AI security startup Aegis and creating a new AI Security Labs operation, as first reported by Axios.
The acquisition brings Aegis founders Omri Limor and Saar Ankonina into Upwind and establishes a dedicated research and engineering initiative within the company. Upwind says the labs will investigate emerging AI security risks while working to turn that research into enterprise-grade security capabilities.
The new operation will build on both Aegis’s technology and Upwind’s existing runtime platform, with work spanning scanning, attack detection and other AI security capabilities.
A Focus on the New AI Attack Surface
AI agents are increasingly capable of interacting with applications, accessing information and executing tasks, while skills and plugins can give those systems additional functionality. Those capabilities also introduce new components and potential security considerations for organizations deploying AI-powered workflows.
Upwind AI Security Labs will focus on researching those risks and developing capabilities designed to identify and address them. The labs will also prioritize secret scanning in transit and at rest, with Upwind pointing to industry findings involving API keys and session tokens that were compromised and harvested at scale for malicious campaigns.
The initiative builds on Aegis’s original focus on security challenges created by AI infrastructure. The startup was founded by Limor and Ankonina, who began their careers together as 8200 alumni working in offensive cybersecurity before later serving in different roles and eventually becoming peers.
After leaving the unit, the two founded Aegis to work on sophisticated AI-generated attacks, including autonomous exploitation pipelines and large-scale credential harvesting. The company later approached Upwind about strategic partnership and investment, and several months of collaboration ultimately resulted in the acquisition.
Combining Two Security Capabilities
For Upwind CEO and Co-Founder Amiram Shachar, bringing Aegis into the company is intended to increase the speed at which the organization can respond to developments in AI security.
“AI security is developing extremely quickly, and by acquiring Aegis and bringing Omri and Saar on board, we are building a team that can move just as quickly,” said Amiram Shachar, CEO and Co-Founder at Upwind. “The Aegis team brings a deep understanding of the challenges around securing agents, skills, and plugins, and by combining that expertise with Upwind’s existing platform, we can move from research to real-world security capabilities much faster.”
The Aegis founders similarly see the acquisition as a way to accelerate their existing work. “We initially built Aegis as a startup to tackle the missing security layer around AI agents, skills and plugins,” said Omri Limor, Co-Founder of Aegis. “After spending several months working together with Upwind, it became clear that joining forces through an acquisition and establishing AI Security Labs inside Upwind would allow us to move much faster and combine our technology with the capabilities Upwind has already built.”
Ankonina added that the integration offers a direct route to scaling the technology. “Integrating our technology directly into Upwind’s platform gives us an immediate path to scale,” added Saar Ankonina, Co-Founder of Aegis. “The establishment of AI Security Labs provides the ideal environment to accelerate research and protect enterprise AI workflows.”
Expanding Beyond the Initial Team
The labs are beginning with 12 developers and researchers from Aegis and Upwind, with plans to significantly increase that number. Upwind expects the group to reach approximately 25 people within three months and potentially grow to 35 as the initiative continues to develop.
The planned growth will expand the company’s research and engineering capacity as it works on emerging AI security challenges. Shachar said the team is intended to become a significant research and engineering capability within Upwind rather than remain a small group attached to the acquisition.
“We built AI Security Labs on the foundation of the Aegis acquisition with the ambition to create a significant research and engineering capability within Upwind,” said Shachar. “We expect the team to grow from 12 people today to 25 and potentially 35 in the coming months, allowing us to expand our research and accelerate the development of new AI security capabilities.”
Speeding Up the Path From Research to Market
A central part of the initiative will be connecting security research with practical product development. Upwind says that as AI capabilities evolve, identifying new attack techniques and translating those findings into usable defenses will become increasingly important.
By bringing Aegis’s technology and team into Upwind, the company says AI Security Labs can shorten the path between identifying emerging risks and developing new security capabilities. The effort is positioned as an extension of Upwind’s existing mission around cloud and AI security.
“As AI transforms both the threat landscape and the speed of modern cyber operations, this is the ideal moment to build, innovate, and lead in cloud and AI security,” added Shachar. “With AI Security Labs, Upwind is reinforcing its mission to protect modern enterprise infrastructure and ensure organizations can safely embrace the next era of AI innovation.”