Straiker for AI Agent Security: Features, Pricing, and Alternatives
Straiker emerged in 2025 as a specialized player in AI security testing and runtime protection, raising $21 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures.
In this article, we'll examine Straiker's approach to AI security testing, and explore their dual-platform offering.
What is Straiker?
Straiker launched in March 2025 with a clear mission: help organizations identify and defend against security vulnerabilities in their AI agent deployments. Founded by Ankur Shah (former SVP at Palo Alto Networks) and Sreenath Kurupati (former VP at Akamai), the company brings enterprise security expertise to the emerging agentic AI market.
Straiker's platform consists of two complementary products:
Ascend AI provides autonomous red teaming capabilities, continuously testing AI agents for security vulnerabilities, data leakage risks, and potential exploits. Think of it as an automated penetration testing tool specifically designed for AI systems.
Defend AI offers runtime protection, monitoring AI agents in production and detecting threats in real-time with what Straiker claims is sub-second latency.
The company targets enterprise customers building complex AI agent deployments. Their early customer base includes People.ai, Coupa Software, and DirecTV—organizations that need confidence their AI systems won't leak sensitive data or fall victim to prompt injection attacks.
Straiker positions itself in the "Secure Development & Testing" category of the agentic security landscape, focusing specifically on AI safety validation rather than authentication, authorization, or identity management.
What Straiker Offers
Straiker's approach centers on two distinct capabilities that work together to secure AI agents throughout the development lifecycle and in production environments.
Autonomous Red Teaming with Ascend AI
Ascend AI automates security testing for AI agents, simulating adversarial attacks to identify vulnerabilities before they reach production. The platform tests for:
Straiker's autonomous approach means these tests run continuously as your AI systems evolve, not just as one-time security audits. For teams iterating rapidly on agent capabilities, this continuous validation provides ongoing confidence in system safety.
Runtime Threat Detection with Defend AI
While Ascend focuses on pre-production testing, Defend AI monitors production environments for active threats. The platform analyzes agent interactions in real-time, detecting:
Straiker claims 99% detection accuracy across the AI agent stack with sub-second latency, ensuring protection doesn't degrade agent performance. The platform provides detailed telemetry and alerts, integrating with existing security operations centers (SOCs) and incident response workflows.
Compliance and Certification
Recognizing that enterprise customers require proven security standards, Straiker has achieved SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001 certifications. For regulated industries evaluating AI security tools, these certifications provide baseline assurance that Straiker handles customer data appropriately.
How Straiker Handles AI Security Testing
Straiker's red teaming approach addresses a genuine gap in AI security: most organizations lack the expertise to comprehensively test their agents for security vulnerabilities. Traditional penetration testing teams may not understand prompt injection vectors or AI-specific attack patterns.
Ascend AI uses adversarial AI models to generate attack scenarios automatically. Instead of manually crafting test cases, the platform learns from known vulnerabilities and generates novel attacks, simulating how sophisticated adversaries might target your agents.
This approach has merit for organizations with complex, customer-facing AI agents. If your agents access sensitive data, integrate with financial systems, or make consequential decisions, understanding potential vulnerabilities before deployment reduces risk significantly.
However, security testing is only one component of a comprehensive AI security strategy. Straiker doesn't provide authentication infrastructure, identity management, or authorization controls—the foundational elements that determine who can access your agents and what actions they're permitted to perform.
Pricing and Plans
Straiker has not published public pricing information. Based on their enterprise focus and customer profile, the platform appears positioned as an enterprise sale requiring custom quotes.
Organizations interested in Straiker should expect:
For early-stage startups or teams exploring AI security on limited budgets, Straiker's enterprise positioning may not align with immediate needs. The platform appears designed for organizations with established AI deployments that justify significant security investment.
Straiker vs. WorkOS
Straiker and WorkOS address fundamentally different aspects of AI agent security, making them complementary rather than competitive solutions.
What Straiker Offers
Straiker specializes in AI security testing and runtime threat detection—validating that your agents behave safely and detecting when they're under attack. This focus on AI-specific vulnerabilities (prompt injection, jailbreaking, data exfiltration) provides value for organizations building complex agent deployments.
Their autonomous red teaming helps identify vulnerabilities that traditional security testing might miss. For teams without dedicated AI security expertise, Ascend AI automates a critical but challenging process.
However, Straiker doesn't provide authentication infrastructure, identity management, or authorization controls. They don't integrate with enterprise SSO providers, they don't offer directory sync for user provisioning, and they don't provide the audit logging that compliance frameworks require. Security testing tools complement—but don't replace—authentication infrastructure.
Why WorkOS Is the Proven Choice for Enterprise Authentication
While Straiker tests whether your AI agents are vulnerable to attacks, WorkOS provides the proven authentication foundation that determines who can access those agents in the first place.
Battle-Tested Enterprise Authentication at Scale
WorkOS powers authentication for thousands of B2B applications serving millions of users. When enterprises evaluate AI agents, their first question isn't "Is this agent vulnerable to prompt injection?"—it's "Does this integrate with our Okta environment? Can we provision users through SCIM? Where are the audit logs?"
WorkOS delivers these table-stakes enterprise requirements today:
Comprehensive Platform, Not Point Solutions
Straiker requires you to bolt AI security testing onto your existing authentication infrastructure. WorkOS provides the comprehensive authentication platform enterprises require, eliminating the need to stitch together multiple vendors for SSO, MFA, directory sync, and user management.
Organizations building production AI agents need both: WorkOS for authentication infrastructure and potentially tools like Straiker for AI-specific security testing. But authentication comes first—you can't test agent security without users to authenticate.
Production-Ready Today, Not Experimental
WorkOS ships no beta features or experimental capabilities. Everything is GA (Generally Available), fully supported, and backed by a 99.99% uptime SLA. When your AI agents handle customer data or make consequential business decisions, you need authentication infrastructure with a proven track record.
Straiker entered the market in 2025 with innovative technology but limited production deployment history. WorkOS has powered enterprise authentication for years, with battle-tested reliability across industries including healthcare, financial services, and SaaS.
Enterprise Features Straiker Doesn't Provide
Security testing tools don't replace authentication infrastructure. Straiker offers no:
These capabilities aren't Straiker's focus—they test AI safety, not authenticate users. But enterprises building production AI agents need both foundational authentication and security validation.
Support That Matches Your Stakes
WorkOS provides dedicated support with SLAs that match enterprise requirements. When authentication breaks, your entire application is inaccessible. WorkOS's white-glove onboarding, comprehensive documentation, and responsive support ensure you're never blocked.
The Right Choice for Production AI Authentication
For enterprises building AI agents that handle sensitive data or make consequential decisions, WorkOS provides the proven authentication infrastructure that compliance frameworks and enterprise customers require.
Straiker offers specialized AI security testing that may complement your security strategy as your agent deployments mature. But authentication infrastructure comes first—without it, you can't deploy agents to production, regardless of how thoroughly you've tested them for prompt injection vulnerabilities.
WorkOS is the foundation. AI security testing tools like Straiker are optimization.
Enterprises build production AI on proven platforms. WorkOS delivers the enterprise-grade authentication your AI agents need today, not experimental security testing for future deployments.
Getting Started with Straiker
Organizations interested in Straiker's AI security testing should expect an enterprise sales process:
Straiker's documentation and developer resources are not publicly accessible without engaging their sales team. This reflects their enterprise positioning—they're selling to security and engineering leaders at established organizations, not individual developers exploring tools.
For teams building production AI agents, the more immediate requirement is implementing enterprise authentication that integrates with customer identity providers. Straiker's security testing becomes relevant once you've deployed agents and need ongoing vulnerability assessment.
Final Thoughts
Straiker demonstrates the growing sophistication of AI security tooling. Their autonomous red teaming approach addresses genuine risks in agent deployments, and their runtime threat detection provides peace of mind for organizations deploying AI at scale.
Their leadership team brings credible enterprise security expertise—Palo Alto Networks and Akamai veterans understand what regulated industries require from security vendors. The $21 million seed round from reputable VCs suggests market confidence in their approach.
But security testing tools complement—they don't replace—authentication infrastructure.
Before you test your AI agents for prompt injection vulnerabilities, you need users to authenticate. Before you monitor runtime threats, you need identity systems that determine who can access agents and what actions they're authorized to perform. Before you achieve compliance, you need audit logs that track every authentication event and authorization decision.
WorkOS provides these foundational requirements today. Proven with enterprises requiring SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance. Comprehensive authentication—SSO, Directory Sync, MFA, Admin Portal, audit logs—in a single platform. Production-ready infrastructure with no experimental features or beta flags. Support backed by 99.99% SLA and white-glove onboarding.
Straiker and similar AI security testing tools push the market forward by addressing emerging threat vectors. But enterprises build on proven authentication platforms, not specialized testing tools.
Ready to build AI agents that enterprises will trust?
WorkOS provides the enterprise-grade authentication infrastructure your production AI deployments require. Implement SSO in an afternoon, not weeks. Satisfy compliance requirements with comprehensive audit logs. Scale with confidence on proven infrastructure.
Explore WorkOS documentation or start building with a free account. When your AI agents handle sensitive data and make consequential decisions, WorkOS delivers the authentication foundation you need.