I'm joined now by Anup Kumar. Thank you so much for joining me, Anup. >> Thank you for having me, Victoria. >> So, I guess let's kind of dive right in on the the recent news. If you could break down and describe what Optiv Consulting in its new form is in and how you look at kind of the market that it's addressing. >> Absolutely. So, um Optiv Consulting um is the cybersecurity advisory consulting and and transformation business um that will now become the cornerstone of our cybersecurity new brand, if you like, focused on really the AI offerings and implementing identity AI at scale securely.
And this is really a business that we acquired from Optiv Security, which is, you know, essentially a KKR portfolio company, and is one of the largest or if if not the largest pure-play cybersecurity firm. So, with this um acquisition, um you know, we got access to about 500 um odd security consultants and forward-deployed engineers, and uh you know, several trusted um enterprise relationships, um about 800 odd clients that has um very very long-tenured relationships.
A large chunk of them are are essentially um Fortune 500 clients as well. Um so, we're excited about that. And they have about 20 years of operating experience, um so proven proven expertise uh in this area. And we're now looking to build forward from this foundation and really invest behind building new offerings, uh particularly in the AI context, um and unlock the additional value. So, that's the um that's the broad context of the deal. >> Sure.
I I in that you kind of explained a bit about what you're gaining from the acquisition, but what was it about kind of Optiv in particular and what they had built that was enticing to you and how do you now kind of hope to gain all of those expertise and all of of that insight into what you want to then take forward in the market under the Optiv Consulting kind of brand name? >> So, Wubis Ventures, which is essentially the the purchaser here, you know, we have been looking for a a cyber consulting firm for very long time and we were looking to make a strategic investment in that area.
We've looked at several different assets over the years and and this one made perfect sense for us and ticked several boxes for a variety of different reasons. First and foremost, you know, it it really had a dynamic combination of security consultants and forward deployed engineers that have deep and when I say deep, really deep security architecture experience and expertise. So, that was sort of one of the main drivers for us. The second, as I had mentioned earlier, was that we got about 800 enterprise clients and Optiv Consulting focus exclusively on the enterprise clients, not the mid-market clients or the smaller clients.
And about 25% of those 800 clients are Fortune 500 clients. So, we are very excited about that and has we've got the you know, sort of a dream hunting ground, if you like, to to mine these accounts and offer newer offerings and and services. And and thirdly, Optiv Consulting is is already on the AI journey. So, they have been delivering AI solutions, whether it's identity and access management in the agentic AI context or it's, you know, sort of LLM centric you know, sort of vulnerability assessment or or AI governance more broadly.
Um compared to the other competing consulting firms, you know, they have much broader and and deeper expertise today. Uh what we're looking to do obviously is to, you know, sort of increase that effort many fold. And uh you know, potentially uh invest behind this capability. Um and and just to take a step back, you know, our um vision is to really help enterprise clients implement agentic AI at scale securely. Like that's that's sort of where we are positioning the business.
And uh you know, we see this as a generational opportunity to kind of bridge the gap between AI adoption and AI governance. So um that was our our compelling driver for this acquisition. >> You touched on on that gap, as you call it, that enterprises face kind of between wanting to adopt AI, unlock AI, but we all kind of also see that AI seems to be expanding the threat landscape and complicating security needs that most enterprise leaders probably would have already called complicated a few years ago, right?
So, can we dive in a little more to your point there on what your enterprise customers are going to gain by working with a partner like Optiv Consulting? >> Yeah. So, I think firstly you're you're spot on uh Victoria. I think the overall threat landscape in the agentic era um has evolved quite significantly. I think therefore sort of micro trends that we are seeing there. Um firstly, um you know, there's a tectonic shift in terms of um AI adoption um and uh the gap between the AI adoption and AI governance is is sort of widening quite.
And um you know, Gartner calls that the cyber regret, which is really the consequences of, you know, implementing AI uh without the right guardrails in place. So, that's that's one sort of trend that we are seeing. Also, you know, the traditional security architectures, um you know, now for global enterprises um have to really adapt itself to nation-state level threats, right? Which is sort of a new dimension for the last few years. And so, that's that's um you know, certainly a complexity there.
Thirdly, the uh you know, the threat is no longer at the at the perimeter, right? I think it's uh it's um embedded within the enterprise workflows and authorized by the business users. So, that's you know, a whole different paradigm. And then lastly, I think while AI is uh you know, helping uh improve production, improve productivity, it's also um an adversary in some ways, right? So, the generative AI systems have demonstrated that, you know, they can do uh vulnerability hunting, generate exploit code, and do a full full-scale attack, right?
So, So, the traditional security architecture in in in our assessment is is the wrong unit of defense, right? The architecture needs to become a lot more adaptive, a lot more proactive, and resilient. And you know, really if I think about Octave Consulting, um their superpower is the is the deep security architecture skills um that the team has. And then combined with uh Rubis Venture, um which is, you know, the buyer capabilities in the AI and data architecture space, we are able to kind of blend um the data and and and AI architecture skills with the security architecture skills to really help enterprises implement AI securely at scale, right?
And uh And what we are able to do is to really think of AI governance uh a lot more holistically, because the way the industry has approached it so far is that, you know, they are focused on selling tools that uh let's secure um you know, agents. And And I think that's important um for then it's a it's a foundational capability to have in the identity and access plane, but really doesn't address the problem of what happens um once the agent is authorized or how do you prevent the agentic uh misbehavior, right?
And I think that's where we come in in terms of the holistic solution that looks at things like the, you know, agent observability and runtime governance and so forth. So, that's where we are um you know, sort of creating a potential differentiation for ourselves. Um and very super excited about um you know, additional value that we can unlock here. >> To your point kind of in in all of that, it certainly seems like there are if not more threats than certainly maybe more complicated threats um than enterprises were facing a few years ago.
So, when you think about all of that and the fact that it's probably likely to grow, I'm curious how do you see demand for security consulting services like what you're now you're going to provide um to enterprises? How do you see that market kind of growing over the rest of of 2026 and maybe into 2027 as well? >> So, I think the short answer is um manyfold. Um right? I think if you think about the the size of the industry, it is a quarter of a trillion um dollar industry.
Um if you look at the AI cybersecurity industry, Gartner is sort of estimates that at about 26 billion dollar which is expected to grow to about 86 billion dollar by 2027, which is, you know, calendar growth of about 82%. So, it is going to grow um leaps and bounds in over the next couple of years. Um and I think there are few different drivers for that, right? I think one we touched upon earlier, which is essentially the fact that um you know, the uh AI adoption is going to go up quite dramatically.
Um and the challenge is that the the chief information security officers or the CISOs, today unfortunately don't have full visibility on what's going on with that within the enterprise, right? In in the context of AI implementation or AI initiatives. Um and you know, I think if you ask a CISO today, you know, could you list all of the agents that the enterprise is currently running? Then yeah, it's very hard to be able to do that. And the reason for that is that, you know, you have a lot of service providers um and consultants that are pitching in AI um related initiatives and productivity initiatives using AI um to board to the CISOs, to the CIOs, and so forth.
And CISOs are not always on the table until, you know, further down the road. Um and you know, that that creates that that visibility challenge uh for the for the CISO firms for the CISOs of the firms. And you know, and it's really hard to defend what you cannot see, right? I think so. That's one one challenge that that we have seen play out. Um the other challenge that we are seeing is that the security architectures are still focused on protecting the systems and the infrastructures and the endpoints.
And you know, to our point earlier, they need to become lot more lot more adaptive. Um and you know, so there is that that gap. And lastly, I think the the the mutual style or mutual class models um you know, have the potential to get weaponized um you know, to to carry out lot more sophisticated attacks and more impactful attacks. And and that isn't going to slow down at all. Right? It's only going to go go up. And uh and you know, the enterprises um um are not ready for that just yet.
So, um I think in in, you know, if I could synthesize that, in summary, what what we are seeing is that the cybersecurity market is pretty large um and uh you know, continuing to go. Um the urgency for AI adoption is is real. Um I think it's driven by the board, etc. Um and the cost of failure is pretty high. I think you're seeing the average cost of breach go up, you know, quite dramatically over the last few years. And the cyber skills shortage will continue to grow.
But uh and and therefore, I think you know, there is um an opportunity for my Optiv Consulting to to come in and help um enterprises become um more future ready in terms of their um security architecture. Um and uh you know, help help enterprises implement um AI at scale security. And that's that's where we are focused on. >> Thank you again so much for for taking a couple minutes. For anybody who is watching this or saw the news when you first announced it and wants to learn more about Optiv Consulting or maybe even reach out about inquiring about services, where should they go to learn more? >> You know, they can obviously um go to our website.
It's called cysecure services.com. We'll be very happy to talk to any potential client or um you know, anyone who would like to partner with us um in terms of uh securing the identity AI implementation initiatives. >> Once again, and thank you for watching. For more from Channel Insider, you can head to channelinsider.com and subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates >> >> right from me and my team. >>
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