Assail, Inc., a cybersecurity startup specializing in autonomous AI agents for offensive security, has officially launched from stealth with Ares, an agentic AI platform designed for continuous, machine-speed penetration testing across APIs, web apps, and mobile environments. The platform promises to compress vulnerability discovery and remediation timelines from weeks to minutes, helping organizations preempt attacks before exploitable flaws are exploited.
The company also announced a $250,000 pre-seed round led by Squared Circle Ventures, $100,000 in AWS cloud credits, and acceptance into the NVIDIA Inception program, giving Assail access to NVIDIA’s AI startup network and venture ecosystem.
Autonomous Offensive AI for Modern Applications
“APIs are the invisible plumbing of everything — every bank, every hospital, every power grid,” said Alissa Knight, CEO and Chief AI Officer of Assail. “I’ve spent my career proving how fragile that plumbing really is. Now we’ve built something that can find fractures faster than any human red team — including me.”
Ares is engineered to operate differently from conventional security tools that rely on known signatures. Powered by a proprietary 14-billion parameter model trained on offensive tactics, techniques, and procedures, Ares can deploy up to 100 coordinated AI agents per target, executing multi-step attack chains with machine-speed precision, simulating a full human red team.
The platform also generates synthetic training data through adversary simulations, continuously evolving its capabilities to uncover vulnerabilities that conventional tools would miss.
AI Agents, Docker Agent, and Enterprise Deployment
Ares provides enterprises with multiple deployment options:
- Agentic AI Agents: Autonomous agents handle continuous penetration testing, monitoring APIs, web, and mobile apps, and surfacing actionable vulnerabilities.
- Open-source Docker Agent: Available on GitHub and Docker Hub, allowing enterprises to deploy Ares behind the firewall to test shadow APIs, internal applications, and unmonitored services.
According to early adopters, Ares improves testing velocity, coverage, and remediation verification, enabling teams to move from periodic, manual pentesting to continuous, evidence-backed validation.
“What impressed me most was the clarity of its offense-led strategy — an agentic system purpose-built for authorized API, web, and mobile security testing, delivering actionable findings that actually harden real attack paths,” said Alex Roman, Information Security Manager at Rady Children’s Health.
Momentum and Market Interest
Since its keynote unveiling at ISC2 Security Congress 2025, Ares has drawn significant attention, with over 264 companies registering for early access. Pilots are underway with Fortune 100 manufacturers, U.S. state and federal agencies, financial institutions, and major hospitals.
Ares will be generally available on February 1, 2026, with expanded enterprise deployment options and enhanced agent capabilities. The platform positions Assail at the forefront of AI-driven, proactive cybersecurity, addressing a growing gap in continuous API and application security.
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