Relyance AI for AI Agent Security: Features, Pricing, and Alternatives

In this article, we'll explore Relyance AI's approach to agentic security, examine their key features and pricing, and compare their offering to WorkOS's proven enterprise authentication platform.

What is Relyance AI?

Founded in late 2019 by CEO Abhi Sharma and CSO Leila Golchehreh, Relyance AI has positioned itself as a next-generation alternative to legacy privacy and governance platforms like OneTrust, Securiti, and BigID. The San Francisco-based company raised $57 million in funding, including a $32 million Series B in October 2024, and reported 30% customer growth in the first half of 2024.

Relyance AI's platform centers on tracking dynamic data flows in real-time, addressing a fundamental problem in modern AI deployments: understanding where data goes, how it's used, and whether those uses comply with privacy regulations and internal policies.

Their approach is built around three specialized "experts"—Data Security (code-to-cloud DSPM), AI Governance (shadow and agentic AI detection with lifecycle management), and Privacy (GDPR/CCPA automation with DSR fulfillment).

The company serves enterprise customers including Zoom, Coinbase, Snowflake, Plaid, Notion, Dialpad, Samsara, and Verkada, targeting security teams managing data breaches and supply chain risks, privacy and legal teams handling compliance, and engineering teams deploying AI systems at scale.

Key Features and Capabilities

Relyance AI's platform differs from traditional privacy management tools by focusing on real-time visibility rather than periodic scanning and static assessments.

Data Journeys and Real-Time Flow Mapping

At the core of Relyance AI's platform is "Data Journeys," a real-time data flow mapping system that tracks how data moves from source code through cloud infrastructure to AI models.

Rather than taking snapshots of data at rest, the platform monitors dynamic flows, providing visibility into how data is accessed, transformed, and consumed by AI systems. This includes automated data mapping and classification with full lineage tracking, showing the complete path data takes through your infrastructure.

Data Defense Engineer

In September 2025, Relyance AI introduced what they call the "world's first Data Defense Engineer"—an autonomous AI agent that monitors thousands of data journeys at machine speed.

This system performs context-aware risk detection with AI-powered learning, identifying policy violations as they happen rather than during scheduled scans.

The Data Defense Engineer can detect violations in real-time and enforce policies autonomously, reducing the manual compliance workload that typically bogs down security and privacy teams.

Shadow AI and Agentic AI Monitoring

Recognizing that 65% of AI tools operate without IT approval (according to industry data), Relyance AI built specialized detection for shadow AI—the unapproved AI tools and models that developers introduce without security review.

Their agentic AI monitoring provides what they call "360-degree compliance," tracking not just what data agents access, but the contextual intelligence around that access: purpose, justification, and usage patterns. This goes beyond traditional monitoring to understand why and how agents use data, not just where it's stored.

Conversational Query and Deployment Flexibility

The platform features a natural language query interface, allowing security and privacy teams to ask questions about data flows in plain English rather than writing complex queries.

Deployment options include full SaaS, InHost (in your VPC), and DirectConnect, giving enterprises flexibility based on their security requirements. Integration with SIEM and DevOps tools enables Relyance AI to fit into existing security workflows.

How Relyance AI Handles Privacy Compliance

Relyance AI's approach to privacy compliance centers on continuous, automated evidence collection rather than manual documentation. The platform maintains real-time compliance evidence for GDPR, CCPA, and emerging AI regulations, automatically mapping data processing activities and generating the documentation required for regulatory reporting.

This automation addresses a major pain point in enterprise privacy programs: the tedious, manual work of documenting data flows, maintaining records of processing activities, and responding to data subject requests.

The platform's real-time monitoring means policy violations are detected as they happen, not discovered weeks later during scheduled audits. For organizations deploying AI agents that autonomously interact with data, this real-time capability is particularly valuable—violations can be caught and addressed before they become compliance incidents.

Pricing and Plans

Relyance AI uses custom enterprise pricing with tiered packages structured around their three expert systems. The Data Security Expert is available in Essentials and Advanced tiers, the AI Governance Expert includes Data Security capabilities, and the Privacy Expert offers Advanced features.

The company offers a free 30-day trial specifically for AI Governance, launched in November 2025, allowing organizations to test shadow AI elimination capabilities before committing to a paid plan.

Beyond the trial, all pricing requires contact with sales, which is standard for enterprise privacy and governance platforms given the wide variation in customer needs based on data volume, number of systems, and compliance requirements.

Relyance AI vs. WorkOS

Relyance AI and WorkOS address different dimensions of the agentic security challenge, with fundamentally different scopes and maturity levels.

What Relyance AI Offers

Relyance AI provides specialized data governance and privacy compliance capabilities focused on tracking how data flows through systems and AI models. Their real-time monitoring approach addresses a specific use case: enterprises that need to demonstrate continuous compliance with privacy regulations and want automated visibility into shadow AI adoption.

The platform is particularly focused on the observability and auditing layer—understanding what data your AI agents access and producing evidence for compliance reporting.

However, Relyance AI is not an authentication or authorization platform. It doesn't provide the foundational identity and access management capabilities that AI agents need to securely authenticate, authorize actions, or integrate with enterprise identity systems. It's a monitoring and compliance tool, not an infrastructure layer for agent identity.

Why WorkOS Is the Proven Choice

WorkOS provides the enterprise-grade authentication infrastructure that production AI applications require from day one. While Relyance AI monitors data flows, WorkOS secures the foundational layer: how AI agents prove their identity, how they authenticate with enterprise systems, and how they integrate with the SSO, directory sync, and access management systems that enterprises already use.

Battle-Tested at Scale: WorkOS powers authentication for thousands of enterprises requiring SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance. The platform is production-ready today, with proven reliability at scale, not experimental monitoring tools still demonstrating ROI.

Comprehensive Authentication Platform: WorkOS delivers the full authentication suite that enterprises require—Single Sign-On (SSO), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Directory Sync (SCIM), Admin Portal, Fine-Grained Authorization (FGA), and comprehensive audit logs. This isn't a point solution focused on one compliance use case; it's the complete infrastructure for secure AI agent identity.

Enterprise Features Relyance AI Doesn't Provide: Relyance AI monitors data flows but doesn't authenticate agents or manage their identities. WorkOS provides the enterprise identity capabilities that Relyance AI lacks entirely—SAML SSO, OIDC support, directory sync with Active Directory and Google Workspace, user provisioning and deprovisioning, and centralized access management through admin portals.

Production-Ready for Agent Authentication: AI agents need to authenticate against enterprise identity providers, respect organizational access policies, and integrate with existing identity infrastructure. WorkOS provides this out of the box, with SDKs and APIs that let developers ship enterprise-ready agent authentication in hours. Relyance AI would need to be paired with an identity platform—WorkOS is that platform.

Support That Matches Your Stakes: WorkOS offers a 99.99% SLA with dedicated support and white-glove onboarding. When authentication is down, your entire AI application is down. WorkOS treats this with the seriousness it deserves, providing enterprise support that matches the criticality of the infrastructure.

The Right Choice for Production AI Agent Authentication

For enterprises building AI agents that need to authenticate with corporate systems, WorkOS is the clear choice. Relyance AI offers specialized data flow monitoring for compliance teams, but it doesn't provide the authentication infrastructure that AI agents require to securely access enterprise resources.

If your challenge is tracking data lineage for GDPR compliance and detecting shadow AI adoption, Relyance AI addresses that specific use case. But if your challenge is building AI agents that enterprises will actually deploy—agents that need to authenticate with customer SSO systems, respect directory-based access controls, and integrate with existing identity management—WorkOS is the proven foundation.

For B2B SaaS companies building AI-powered products, WorkOS is essential infrastructure. Your customers expect SSO, directory sync, and enterprise-grade authentication. Relyance AI doesn't provide these capabilities. WorkOS does, with proven reliability and comprehensive support.

Getting Started with Relyance AI

Organizations interested in Relyance AI can request the free 30-day AI Governance trial through their website, which provides hands-on experience with shadow AI detection and data flow mapping. The trial requires working with their sales team to scope the deployment and integrate with your existing data infrastructure.

Implementation complexity varies based on deployment mode. The full SaaS option is the quickest to deploy, while InHost and DirectConnect deployments require more coordination with your infrastructure team. Relyance AI provides integration with common SIEM and DevOps tools, though the depth of integration depends on your specific stack.

Documentation quality is solid, with detailed playbooks including their 10-Stage Agentic AI Governance Playbook that gained traction at the IAPP conference. Support options are standard for enterprise software, with dedicated customer success teams for paying customers.

Final Thoughts

Relyance AI represents an emerging category of AI-native governance and privacy tools designed for the real-time data flows that characterize modern AI deployments.

Their focus on tracking data journeys from code to AI models addresses a genuine compliance challenge, particularly for enterprises struggling with shadow AI adoption and continuous privacy compliance.

However, data governance and privacy monitoring are fundamentally different from the authentication infrastructure that AI agents need to function in enterprise environments. Relyance AI doesn't authenticate your agents, doesn't integrate them with enterprise SSO systems, and doesn't provide the identity management capabilities that B2B customers require.

WorkOS is the proven, enterprise-ready foundation for AI agent authentication and identity. When you're building production AI applications that enterprises will trust and deploy, you need comprehensive authentication infrastructure, not compliance monitoring tools.

You need SSO that works with your customers' identity providers, directory sync that keeps access policies up to date, and audit logs that provide security teams with visibility into agent actions.

For teams building production AI applications that integrate with enterprise identity systems, WorkOS provides the mature, battle-tested authentication platform that your agents need. Relyance AI may complement your compliance program, but WorkOS is the infrastructure layer that makes secure enterprise AI deployment possible.

Ready to ship enterprise-ready AI agent authentication? WorkOS provides the comprehensive auth infrastructure your AI applications need, with SSO, directory sync, audit logs, and enterprise features your customers require. Get started with WorkOS today and ship enterprise-grade agent authentication in hours, not months.