Symmetry Systems Launches AI Security and Governance Platform

Symmetry Systems was spun out of research from the University of Texas at Austin's Spark Research Lab by co-founders Mohit Tiwari, a former professor, and Casen Hunger. The company, founded in 2018, has raised a total of $36 million across three funding rounds to develop its data-centric security technology. The platform addresses a critical gap in enterprise security, as traditional tools were not designed to protect against the unique risks of Large Language Models (LLMs). These risks include prompt injection, where attackers use malicious inputs to manipulate an AI's behavior, and sensitive data leakage, which can occur when employees input confidential information into external AI services. AIGuard introduces governance for "agentic AI," a new class of non-human identity that operates autonomously. Unlike static service accounts, these AI agents require dynamic permissions and unique digital identities, as shared credentials create significant security vulnerabilities. The new platform is built upon Symmetry's existing DataGuard product, leveraging its ability to identify over 400 types of sensitive data. This allows AIGuard to map the permissions and potential "blast radius" of every AI agent, connecting its actions directly to the specific sensitive data it can access. Through proxy integrations, the system monitors both company-approved AI tools and the use of "shadow AI" like public versions of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. This provides visibility into what data is being shared in prompts and whether that usage violates corporate policy. Symmetry enters a rapidly growing AI governance market, projected to reach $5.78 billion by 2029. Key competitors include major technology players like Microsoft with its Purview and Security Copilot tools, IBM with its watsonx.governance platform, and Google, which is developing its own AI-powered security operations.