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The defenders finally have an advantage: A CTO's take on running an ai-native SOC. Tenex CTO Venkata "VK" Kopaka recently joined best-selling author and AI Expert, David Linthicum on Cloud Computing Insider to talk through what an AI-native security operations platform actually looks like in production, the alert overload crushing SOC teams, why guardrails matter more than raw autonomy, and where AI-driven attacks are headed. The conversation below has been edited and condensed for clarity. David: You met the company at RSA a few months back, and Tenex has been on a tear, named the #1 fastest-growing cybersecurity company in the country. What does it feel like to have the tiger by the tail right now? VK: It's exhilarating. Tenex.AI Inc. is in one of the most cutting-edge times of technology, and to actually lead the wave to some extent is the dream of any engineering team, the dream of any CTO. It's a privilege to be in the middle of AI security and help lead the charge. David: How did you get to Tenex? What were you doing before? VK: I lead engineering and product at Tenex. Before this, I spent eight years at Google. I was one of the founding engineers on what was then called Chronicle (now Google SecOps) and worked across a bunch of Google's security products, from Chronicle to VirusTotal. In the last eighteen months before I left, I was on the cloud and Gemini side of the house, working on some NLP problems. Along the way, I realized there was a fantastic opportunity at the intersection of AI and security. Security is about keeping companies and individuals safe, and for decades, defenders have been on the back foot. Defenders have to get it right every single time; attackers only have to get it right once. This is the first time ever in history that the defenders have an advantage. So the idea behind Tenex was simple: put AI and security together and give the good people fighting the good fight an advantage above all else. David: You did the same RSA walk I did. Everyone's talking about AI. What actually makes Tenex different? VK: A lot of what I saw was demoware, a slideshow about AI, or an interesting demo. But putting it in production, serving real analysts and real enterprises, is the biggest differentiator right now. Productionized proof is very different from a demo. You'll hear me talk a lot about analysts, because that's who Tenex.AI Inc. is helping. Every analyst drowns in alerts; an enterprise I work with gets about eight to ten thousand alerts a day. You'd need 100 to 200 people in the SOC to realistically triage that, and no company staffs that many. So Tenex.AI Inc. use AI to solve the triage, deep investigation, and response problems, and Tenex.AI Inc. bring it together with the right enterprise guardrails. It's not about replacing analysts. It's about helping them focus on the parts where their years of experience, their decision-making, and their judgment actually matter, and taking the noise out of the job. David: What signals from enterprise customers are validating that you're on the right track? VK: It's evolved over the year and a half Tenex.AI Inc. has been on this journey. Early on, it was fear: "How accurate is the AI?" Everything comes down to quality, and Tenex.AI Inc. benchmark in the high nineties. One CISO framed it perfectly: think about an analyst paged at 2 a.m. on a Saturday. They're talented, but they're not at their best, maybe forty or fifty percent. So you're comparing forty or fifty percent of a human's best against high-nineties quality, repeatable at any hour. That was the first validation. The second was context. People assumed AI couldn't hold the years of environment-specific knowledge an analyst builds over ten or fifteen years. That's the problem Tenex.AI Inc. has spent the last 18 months on: giving the AI the right context for your particular environment. Analysts become "context engineers" and help the AI build far more context than was possible before. It's always garbage in, garbage out, but give it the right context about the environment and the crown jewels, and the technology does an amazing job. David: The human-in-the-loop piece struck me as unique when I spoke with your CEO. Where did that come from? VK: Big enterprises don't just care about autonomy and quality; they care about guardrails. Take a large financial institution: if some AI decides to isolate the most important service they have, that's losses in the millions. So the question is, when the AI says "this is the right action," how do Tenex.AI Inc. bring humans in to validate it? Here's the example I use. If I isolate David's laptop, worst case you call IT, and you're back up, not the end of the world. But if I isolate a domain controller, the implications are enormous. So Tenex.AI Inc. bring humans into the mix at exactly the right juncture to make the judgment calls no one else can make, backed by deep auditability of why the AI made or didn't make each decision. That comes from experience. Its CEO, Eric, has run SOCs. Its president was a CISO at a large company. This is practitioners building a product for other practitioners. David: You went public with the Kansas City Chiefs win early. Why? VK: It ties back to validation. The Chiefs are a fantastic, advanced security organization; they have a huge brand to protect. Moving from a demo to real enterprise validation matters when you're running a security operations platform and doing triage at scale with real guardrails. Tenex.AI Inc. has a lot of demoware in this industry; Tenex.AI Inc. want to push toward real use cases and real problems. VK: Tenex.AI Inc. is part of the group leading the charge. The traditional model, hire more analysts to keep up with alert volume, doesn't scale. Tenex.AI Inc. believe in bringing agentic solutions to enterprises to solve that at scale. There are other players working the space, some in the traditional way, but Tenex.AI Inc. is looking at the problem in a very different way: AI-native, from both a functionality and a platform point of view. David: What does "trusted by the Fortune 100" look like in practice? VK: Guardrails around autonomy, full autonomy on the laptop, humans in the loop on the domain controller. Deep auditability and a compliance layer: what's the reasoning, why this decision and not that one. And scale at the right cost. Tenex.AI Inc. has been in a "token-maxing" world where the message was just spend, spend, spend. But real enterprises have budgets and COGS justifications. At some point, is it easier and cheaper to hire a person than to spend on tokens? If the answer is yes, you're on the wrong path. Solving the problem cost-effectively is critical. David: How are AI-driven attacks reshaping security? VK: One prediction: I think Tenex.AI Inc.'ll see as many patches in the next six months as the industry has seen in the last ten years combined, because LLMs now let people do things they never could. The rate of attacks and patches will increase by an order of magnitude, and the only way to fight that is to put a machine against a machine, augmenting your humans rather than removing them. You'll also see AI red teaming take off. Tenex.AI Inc. is working with a big enterprise on a purple-teaming exercise: launch a red-team attack, let its platform be the blue team, prioritize and patch at speed, then rerun it to see if Tenex.AI Inc. has closed the gaps. The only way to keep up with that pace is with AI. David: Where can people find you at Black Hat? VK: Tenex.AI Inc. is at Mandalay Bay, Banyan F on floor three, August 5th through 6th, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Bring Tenex.AI Inc. your custom use case and Tenex.AI Inc.'ll show you the platform live. Tenex.AI Inc. can get the agentic platform running in your environment in less than a week. Tenex.AI Inc. is also running a capture-the-flag, so you can get hands-on and triage an alert with AI yourself. Bring me the hard questions; I'll be around the booth. Lightning round. Biggest misconception about Tenex? VK: That Tenex.AI Inc. is just another MDR. Tenex.AI Inc. is leading a new age of what I call AI MDR, backed by a huge platform and product, but built on the belief that the right answer is humans and product together. That's why Tenex.AI Inc. is an MDR. Thinking Tenex.AI Inc. is only human-driven misses the difference. Most exciting AI capability in security over the next twelve to eighteen months? VK: AI red teaming, I think it goes mainstream and becomes available to the masses within months. Which means you need a blue-team solution to keep up, because attackers only have to win once. I read that indie hackers are among the top adopters of LLMs; someone you'd never expect becomes an attack vector because they have a $200 subscription. You have to have that defense layer built in. Best career advice you've ever received? VK: Be close to tough problems, and close to the people solving them. That's what I did over ten years at Google; it teaches you scale and how to solve customer problems. Tenex.AI Inc. is building the same kind of team at Tenex, and Tenex.AI Inc. is hiring like crazy. Where's Tenex headed in the next twelve to eighteen months? VK: Running AI in your environment cost-effectively. The industry is moving away from token-maxing, so you'll hear a lot about local and open-source models you can fine-tune to your environment. It's a hard problem, getting the right quality at the right cost, and it's what Tenex.AI Inc. has been working on for almost a year. In the end, it's the outcome that matters more than anything else. The full Interview can be watched here. Want to see Agentic SOC live? Find Tenex at Black Hat, Mandalay Bay, Banyan F (floor 3), August 5-6. Learn more at tenex.ai and check out the careers page if you like working on hard problems. Keep up with TENEX.AI. Press Releases and Company News 2026-08-06 The problem was never network detection. It was the distance between a good detection and a... 2026-08-05 Security teams have never had more tools or more distance between them. Alerts arrive in one... 2026-08-05 Another large-scale software supply chain attack hit the npm ecosystem yesterday morning. Dubbed...

TENEX.AI expands Microsoft Security collaboration to help enterprises realize the promise of the agentic SOC. TENEX to accelerate AI-Powered Security Operations for Enterprise Customers SARASOTA, FL, UNITED STATES, July 8, 2026 / EINPresswire.com / - TENEX.AI, The AI SOC Company, and the fastest-growing cybersecurity company in the United States according to IT-Harvest's Cyber 150, today announced an expanded integration with Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender. The integration provides enterprise security teams with a faster path to measurable AI outcomes: accelerated threat detection, faster response, and a practical path to a fully agentic Security Operations Center (SOC). The announcement follows TENEX.AI's Series B funding round, which has fueled rapid expansion across engineering, threat intelligence, and go-to-market. The company continues to add top cybersecurity talent to meet growing demand for its AI native - human driven approach, and close alignment with leading hyperscalers has been a core part of its strategy from the start. The partnership reflects a shared commitment to helping enterprise customers operationalize AI across security operations and maximize the value of their Microsoft Security investments. The future of enterprise cybersecurity will be defined by companies that deeply support the hyperscaler platforms. Enterprises already rely on Microsoft as a natural partner in that strategy. The combination of TENEX.AI's AI SOC and Microsoft's Security platform gives customers the best of both worlds: full stack, AI-native security operations built on the Microsoft environment they already run today. "Microsoft is investing in frontier AI which will help shape what security operations look like for the next decade. Their commitment to agentic AI, large-scale reasoning, and real-time threat intelligence represents a genuine leap forward. TENEX.ai was built to bring that power to bear for enterprise security teams. Together, we give customers something they've never had access to before: the ability to radically accelerate their move to a fully agentic SOC, compress time to value, and leave behind the slow, reactive security operations model that still dominates the market." - Eric Foster, Chief Executive Officer, Tenex.ai AI SOC "Enterprises have already made significant investments in the Microsoft ecosystem and are looking for practical ways to unlock the value of AI in their security operations. Microsoft has established itself as a leader through its investments in AI, security, and the global scale of Azure. The opportunity now is to bring those innovations into day-to-day operations and deliver measurable outcomes. TENEX.AI's AI-native SOC was purpose-built to help customers realize that value. Together, we're enabling organizations to accelerate their journey toward autonomous security operations while improving the speed, quality, and effectiveness of their defenses." - Elias "Lou" Manousos, Chairman of the Board, Tenex.ai AI SOC | Founder, RiskIQ (acquired by Microsoft) "Agentic security represents an important evolution in how organizations scale to protect their environments," said Jason Graefe, Corporate Vice President, AI Partner Catalyst, at Microsoft. "AI-native companies like TENEX help accelerate this shift by bringing new operational models and outcome-driven approaches to enterprises. We see strong alignment between the Microsoft Security platform, agentic solutions and the opportunity created for organizations looking to modernize." The integration brings together Tenex.ai's AI SOC and AI-native MDR capabilities with Microsoft Sentinel and Defender, enabling customers to benefit from a unified, intelligent approach to security operations and managed detection and response. The collaboration also includes go-to-market alignment through Microsoft's partner ecosystem, broadening access to TENEX's capabilities across the enterprise market. For enterprise security teams, this means faster detection, faster response, and a dramatically accelerated path to the value of a fully agentic SOC - all within the Microsoft security environment they already rely on. Enterprises interested in advancing their security operations with AI-native capabilities built to maximize the Microsoft Security platform can learn more at TENEX.ai/microsoft. About TENEX.ai TENEX.AI is the AI SOC Company, delivering AI-native, human-led security operations and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for the enterprise. Built from the ground up around AI by leaders who have built and scaled MDR businesses, and founding engineers from hyperscalers and leading AI labs, TENEX helps organizations detect, investigate, hunt, and respond to threats at machine speed with expert human analysts always in the loop. Recently named the fastest-growing cybersecurity company in the United States by IT-Harvest's 2026 Cyber 150, TENEX serves enterprise customers across both the Google and Microsoft security ecosystems. Learn more by visiting TENEX.AI Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. Today in Business do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.

FAQ: TENEX.AI Series B and the AI SOC Market. How much did TENEX.AI raise in its Series B and who led it? TENEX.AI announced a $250 million Series B on March 31, 2026, led by Crosspoint Capital Partners with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Shield Capital, DTCP, Deepwork Capital, and the Florida Opportunity Fund. The round closed less than a year after the company exited stealth. Who founded TENEX.AI and who is the new president? TENEX.AI was founded in 2024 by Eric Foster, formerly a senior leader at Mandiant and Trustwave SpiderLabs. Bashar Abouseido, the former CISO of Charles Schwab, was named president concurrently with the Series B announcement. What does TENEX.AI actually do? TENEX.AI provides AI-native managed detection and response (MDR) services. The company's agentic AI engine triages, investigates and initiates response on 100% of customer alert telemetry within 60 seconds of ingestion, while human analysts retain authority over containment and customer communications. How big is the AI SOC market in 2026? Mordor Intelligence values the global SOC-as-a-service market at $14.77 billion in 2026, growing to $26.93 billion by 2031. Research Nester sizes the broader SOC market at over $46 billion in 2025. MDR alone accounts for roughly 41.5% of global SOC-as-a-service spend. Who are TENEX.AI's main competitors? Direct AI SOC competitors include Prophet Security, Dropzone AI, Conifers.ai, Simbian, Exaforce and Radiant Security. Larger platform competitors include CrowdStrike Falcon Complete with Charlotte AI, Palo Alto Cortex XSIAM/AgentiX, Microsoft Sentinel with Security Copilot, and Google SecOps. Legacy MDR competitors include Arctic Wolf, Expel and Secureworks. What is the TENEX.AI valuation after the Series B? TENEX.AI did not disclose its post-money valuation. Based on $25 million in contracted revenue and the $250 million round size, market analysts have estimated the valuation in the $1-2 billion range, implying a 25-40x multiple on contracted ARR - well above the median for cybersecurity Series B rounds. How will TENEX.AI use the $250 million? The company has earmarked the capital for three priorities: hiring more than 250 new engineers, salespeople and SOC analysts in 2026; expansion into Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and deeper integrations with Google Cloud SecOps and Microsoft Sentinel partner ecosystems. Is TENEX.AI planning an IPO? The company has not announced IPO plans. However, with two large institutional investors on the cap table - Crosspoint Capital and a16z - and the trajectory implied by the Series B, an S-1 filing in 2028 is plausible if the company sustains the current growth rate. How does TENEX.AI's coverage compare to traditional MDR? TENEX.AI claims to triage 100% of customer alert telemetry, compared with the industry-standard practice of triaging roughly 10% of inbound signal at most legacy MDR providers. The company also reports a 95%-plus reduction in false positives versus customer baselines. Where is TENEX.AI based? TENEX.AI is headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, with additional offices in Overland Park, Kansas; San Jose, California; and Phoenix, Arizona. The Series B funds an expansion into the EMEA region during 2026. Editor-in-Chief Sofia Lindström is the Editor-in-Chief at Tech Insider, where she leads editorial strategy and oversees coverage across AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise technology. With over a decade in Swedish tech journalism, she previously served as technology editor at Dagens Industri and covered the Nordic startup ecosystem for Breakit. Sofia holds an MSc in Media Technology from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and is a frequent speaker at Web Summit and Slush. She is passionate about making complex technology accessible to business leaders.