Robust Intelligence founder Yaron Singer – official Harvard pic
Cisco, the major worldwide communications firm, is acquiring Robust Intelligence, an Israeli cybersecurity startup that helps businesses test their Artificial intelligence systems to prevent their failure. The terms of the deal for Robust were not disclosed.
“Our intent to acquire Robust Intelligence marks an exciting new chapter in our journey to secure the AI-driven enterprise,” Cisco said in a statement. “Together, we’ll push the boundaries of AI security, empowering organizations to embrace AI’s full potential while safeguarding their critical assets. Stay tuned for more updates as we finalize the deal and integrate Robust Intelligence’s technology into the Cisco Security Cloud.”
Founded in 2019 by Harvard Professor Yaron Singer, and a former student of his, Kojin Oshiba, who was a machine learning engineer at QuantCo and a cofounder of its Japan branch. Robust Intelligence builds products that integrate seamlessly into the AI development life cycle to ensure robustness and reliability. The 42 year old Israeli is a professor of computer sciences and applied mathematics. Oshiioba has written multiple papers on robust machine learning and received his BA in Computer Science and Statistics from Harvard.
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A student and teacher starting a company together is a pretty big deal. And this is especially so in this case as one is Israeli and the other is a Japanese-American and the two met at Harvard. Not only that, the two both completed their degrees. The most famous and most successful people in the world of high tech who had gone to Harvard are Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, and they both dropped out without finishing their degrees.
Robust says that it is building the AI Firewall, a piece of software that wraps around an AI model to protect it from making mistakes. An AI Firewall is an idea, they say, that was considered an impossible AI problem until recently. Even if the AI problem were to be solved, most of the engineers we interviewed were doubtful that the underlying platform could be built by a startup.
“Security leaders need purpose-built solutions they can trust to keep up with the new paradigm of AI risk,” said Robust Intelligence co-founder and CEO Yaron Singer. “Our team is excited about the integral role our platform will play in shaping the future of the Cisco Security Cloud, providing end-to-end AI security and leading the AI revolution with Cisco.”
Cisco said its Cisco Security Cloud, powered by Robust Intelligence technology, offers enhanced protection for AI applications and models. By mitigating risks like prompt injection, data poisoning, and jailbreaking, we’re strengthening our ability to defend against a wide range of AI threats. The combined expertise of Cisco and Robust Intelligence will drive rapid innovation in AI security, enabling customers to stay ahead of evolving threats.
Robust Intelligence’s focus on automated model assessment and proactive risk mitigation complements Cisco’s commitment to simplifying configuration, predicting attacks, and enforcing adaptive policies. Cisco boasted that this unified approach will provide customers with a centralized solution for securing their network, AI applications, and users.
