Optiv has sold its advisory, consulting, and transformation project-based services business to Vobis Ventures, creating a newly independent Optiv Consulting business focused on helping enterprises securely adopt agentic AI at scale.
The deal closed on June 1, with Optiv Consulting initially operating under its current name and serving as Optiv’s priority services partner for the next year.
Optiv will retain its managed services and staff augmentation businesses in-house, while the former ACT services unit will serve as the foundation for Vobis Ventures’ cybersecurity services strategy.
Optiv Consulting targets enterprise AI governance gap
Anup Kumar, operations executive partner at Vobis Ventures, is stepping in as CEO of Optiv Consulting.
In an interview with Channel Insider, Kumar said the company is positioning itself around a market shift in which enterprises are rapidly adopting AI but struggling to govern autonomous systems once they are deployed.
“Our vision is to really help enterprise clients implement agentic AI at scale securely,” Kumar said.
The acquired business brings nearly 500 consultants and forward-deployed security engineers, more than 800 enterprise clients, and roughly 20 years of operating experience.
Kumar said about a quarter of those clients are Fortune 500 companies, giving Optiv Consulting a base of large enterprise relationships to expand with new AI security, governance, and architecture offerings.
“We see this as a generational opportunity to bridge the gap between AI adoption and AI governance.”
Enterprise security architectures face new pressure from AI
Kumar said Vobis was drawn to the business because of its depth in security architecture, enterprise relationships, and existing AI-related work, including identity and access management for agentic AI, LLM-focused vulnerability assessment, and broader AI governance.
He argued that traditional cybersecurity architectures are insufficient for an agentic AI environment, where threats may no longer reside at the perimeter but instead become embedded in enterprise workflows and authorized by business users.
“What happens once the agent is authorized?” Kumar said, pointing to the need for stronger runtime governance, agent observability, and controls around agentic misbehavior.
“The threat is no longer at the perimeter. It’s embedded within the enterprise workflows and authorized by the business users.”
Demand for AI cybersecurity consulting expected to rise
Kumar expects demand for cybersecurity consulting services to grow sharply through 2026 and 2027 as AI adoption accelerates, CISOs struggle to gain visibility into enterprise AI deployments, and adversaries use AI to automate vulnerability discovery and exploit development.
He said many CISOs cannot yet list all AI agents operating across their organizations, especially as business units and outside service providers push AI initiatives before security teams are fully involved.
Vobis plans to combine Optiv Consulting’s security architecture expertise with its own AI and data architecture capabilities.
Kumar said the goal is to build a long-term cybersecurity brand focused on helping enterprises close the gap between AI adoption and AI governance.