AI Is the New Third-Party Risk—and Cranium and Supply Wisdom Want to Help Enterprises See It Coming
In the scramble to deploy artificial intelligence across every corner of the enterprise, companies are waking up to a new blind spot: they may not fully understand where their AI systems come from—or what’s lurking inside them.
That’s the core insight behind a new partnership between Cranium, a leader in AI security and governance, and Supply Wisdom, a specialist in real-time supply chain risk intelligence. Together, they’re rolling out “Know Your AI” (KYAI), a first-of-its-kind solution designed to give companies deep visibility into the origins, behaviors, and risks of both their own and their suppliers’ AI systems.
Think of it as “Know Your Customer” (KYC)—but for large language models, autonomous agents, and third-party training pipelines.
As generative AI and embedded agents become standard across everything from procurement tools to SaaS platforms, enterprises are inheriting a tangled mess of unseen dependencies, unvetted models, and unknown vulnerabilities. And, like the infamous SolarWinds breach showed, ignoring third-party risk can be catastrophic.
Why AI Is the New Supply Chain Vulnerability
Modern AI systems rarely operate in isolation. They’re built using third-party APIs, trained on external datasets, integrated via unknown middleware, and deployed in hybrid-cloud environments. The result: a sprawling, often opaque AI supply chain with major blind spots.
“AI doesn’t live in a vacuum,” says Jonathan Dambrot, CEO of Cranium. “If you don’t know where your models—or your suppliers’ models—come from, or how they’re behaving in real time, you’re exposed.”
The KYAI solution aims to bring structure and surveillance to that chaos. Key features include:
- AI Supply Chain Mapping: Visualize where your models originate, how they were trained, who built them, and where they’re running.
- Continuous Penetration Testing: Simulate adversarial attacks against both internal and third-party AI systems to find exploitable weaknesses.
- Real-Time AI Risk Alerts: Leverage Supply Wisdom’s intelligence to detect shifts in vendor risk, regulatory exposure, or geopolitical threats.
- Unified Governance Layer: Apply standardized compliance rules and accountability frameworks across all AI touchpoints—internal or external.
KYAI: Built for a Regulatory Tidal Wave
This is more than a proactive security play—it’s also a compliance-ready architecture, tailored for the incoming wave of AI regulations. With the EU AI Act, U.S. executive orders, and industry-specific AI governance standards on the rise, enterprises are under mounting pressure to demonstrate AI oversight and supply chain due diligence.
“AI is the next frontier of enterprise risk,” said Jenna Wells, CEO of Supply Wisdom. “We’ve seen how unmanaged third-party risk can bring down entire enterprises. KYAI brings the transparency and continuous monitoring businesses need to stay on top of third-party AI risk.”
This becomes especially relevant in sectors like finance, healthcare, and defense, where a black-box model sourced from a low-tier vendor could inadvertently introduce bias, IP theft risk, or even national security exposure.
Market Context: A Risk Gap Few Are Addressing
While dozens of vendors offer AI observability tools or model performance monitoring, few address the broader AI supply chain or risk exposure across vendor ecosystems. That’s where KYAI steps in, merging Cranium’s deep expertise in AI security with Supply Wisdom’s proven track record in third-party intelligence.
It’s a potent combination—and one that aligns with rising boardroom and CISO concerns. A 2025 Forrester survey found that 68% of enterprises deploying AI tools had “limited or no visibility” into their third-party AI dependencies, while 74% expressed concern about regulatory scrutiny tied to those unknowns.
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