Canadian artificial intelligence company Cohere said on Thursday it has signed a letter of intent to acquire AISLE, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup that uses AI to detect vulnerabilities in software.
A planned deal, terms undisclosed
The announcement covers an intended acquisition rather than a completed one — Cohere has so far only signed a letter of intent, and the terms of the deal were not disclosed. The tie-up would add cybersecurity to the business entity Cohere is assembling through its merger with Germany's Aleph Alpha, a combination reported to be worth about $20 billion, and would extend Cohere's European footprint through AISLE's engineering hub in Prague.
Cohere said the acquisition reflects its continued investment in Europe and would deepen its presence across the region, strengthening European AI. It said the deal is aimed at boosting the combined group's security and threat-detection capabilities for enterprise and public-sector clients, with private deployment available on customers' own systems.
"Increasingly capable AI systems are transforming both cybersecurity and the threats organizations face, and defensive capabilities must advance just as quickly," Cohere said in its statement.
The startup behind the deal
AISLE was founded in 2025 by Ondrej Vlcek, the former chief executive of Czech antivirus company Avast, together with co-founders from Google DeepMind and Anthropic. AISLE says its AI found more than 500 new bugs in widely used software in its first year, including 12 vulnerabilities in OpenSSL — the open-source program that encrypts internet traffic for banks, governments and messaging apps — which were fixed after their discovery.
The move underscores how quickly AI labs are racing to bolt on AI-driven security capabilities, as both the defensive tools and the threats they counter grow more sophisticated.
Sources: Reuters, Economic Times
A planned deal, terms undisclosed
The announcement covers an intended acquisition rather than a completed one — Cohere has so far only signed a letter of intent, and the terms of the deal were not disclosed. The tie-up would add cybersecurity to the business entity Cohere is assembling through its merger with Germany's Aleph Alpha, a combination reported to be worth about $20 billion, and would extend Cohere's European footprint through AISLE's engineering hub in Prague.
Cohere said the acquisition reflects its continued investment in Europe and would deepen its presence across the region, strengthening European AI. It said the deal is aimed at boosting the combined group's security and threat-detection capabilities for enterprise and public-sector clients, with private deployment available on customers' own systems.
"Increasingly capable AI systems are transforming both cybersecurity and the threats organizations face, and defensive capabilities must advance just as quickly," Cohere said in its statement.
The startup behind the deal
AISLE was founded in 2025 by Ondrej Vlcek, the former chief executive of Czech antivirus company Avast, together with co-founders from Google DeepMind and Anthropic. AISLE says its AI found more than 500 new bugs in widely used software in its first year, including 12 vulnerabilities in OpenSSL — the open-source program that encrypts internet traffic for banks, governments and messaging apps — which were fixed after their discovery.
The move underscores how quickly AI labs are racing to bolt on AI-driven security capabilities, as both the defensive tools and the threats they counter grow more sophisticated.
Sources: Reuters, Economic Times
