AI to the Rescue: Google Vets Secure $13M to Guard Your Inbox

09/10/2025 Security

Imagine a world where those pesky phishing emails and sneaky malware attempts never even reach your inbox. That's the vision of AegisAI, a new startup founded by former Google security gurus. They've just secured $13 million in funding to build AI-powered guardians that autonomously neutralize email threats.

It's no secret that email is the gateway for most cyberattacks. We're not talking about simple spam here. Sophisticated phishing attacks, especially those crafted with AI, are becoming incredibly convincing. Studies show that AI-generated phishing emails have a significantly higher click-through rate than those written by humans. That's a scary thought.

AegisAI's approach is pretty innovative. Instead of relying on static rules, they've created a network of AI agents, each trained to identify specific threats. Think of it like a team of expert detectives working together. When a suspicious email arrives, these agents spring into action, analyzing links, attachments, and even the sender's behavior. They then communicate with each other to determine if it's safe or malicious.

Cy Khormaee, one of the co-founders, knows a thing or two about this. He spent years at Google, leading the team responsible for protecting billions of users from online threats. He mentions that most attacks start with a malicious PDF attachment and that was one of his motivations. He has firsthand experience in building phishing detection technologies. Ryan Luo, the other co-founder, was also a key player in Google's Safe Browsing team.

How it Works

AegisAI has built reasoning agents, each custom-built and fine-tuned to detect a specific threat. This system challenges typical email security platforms that rely on static rules and often require user training.

According to Khormaee, the orchestrating agent recognizes a threat (or potential threat) and then calls other specialized agents, which he refers to as "buddies." These agents then run the analysis, reason with each other, and respond to the orchestrating agent with a verdict. It's like a highly coordinated, AI-powered security task force.

One of the key advantages of this approach is its ability to adapt to new threats. Traditional email security systems often struggle to keep up with the ever-evolving tactics of cybercriminals. AegisAI's agents, however, can learn and self-tune in real-time, making them more resilient to new attacks.

AegisAI claims that their agents also significantly reduce false positives – up to 90% compared to traditional solutions. I can imagine how frustrating it is to have legitimate emails flagged as spam, so this is a huge benefit.

Setting up AegisAI is supposedly easy, taking only a few minutes to install via an API on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. The system then analyzes your email environment and provides a detailed report, highlighting any potential issues.

It's still early days for AegisAI, but they're already working with paying customers in the US and Europe. With this new round of funding, they plan to expand their team and build out their go-to-market strategy. It will be interesting to see how they develop and evolve over the next years.