The ever-expanding digital perimeter has forced organizations to confront a difficult reality where critical data must be shared with external partners to drive business, yet this very act of sharing creates significant security and compliance risks. In response to this persistent challenge, Kiteworks and Concentric AI have announced a strategic partnership designed to deliver a unified, automated solution for data security governance and enforcement. By integrating Concentric AI’s sophisticated data discovery and classification capabilities with Kiteworks’ robust policy enforcement platform, the collaboration aims to create a seamless, end-to-end framework. This system is engineered to protect sensitive information throughout its entire lifecycle, from its initial discovery within the enterprise to its secure transfer and use by external collaborators, thereby mitigating the risks of data breaches, intellectual property theft, and non-compliance with increasingly stringent regulatory mandates in a world defined by collaboration.
A Unified Approach to Data Protection
From Insight to Action
The partnership fundamentally addresses the critical disconnect between understanding data risk and implementing effective protection. Many organizations invest heavily in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) tools to gain visibility into their sensitive data assets, identifying what information they possess and where it resides across their complex IT environments. However, these valuable insights often remain siloed, disconnected from the very communication channels—such as email, file sharing, and APIs—used to transfer that data outside the corporate network. This collaboration bridges that chasm by leveraging Concentric AI’s deep learning technology, which autonomously scans and classifies unstructured data to provide the essential context for protection. By identifying and labeling files as “Confidential,” “HIPAA-protected,” or “GDPR-relevant,” the system establishes the foundation for intelligent, context-aware security that can be enforced automatically at the point of egress.
This integration is designed to transform static data risk insights into dynamic, automated, and actionable protection that follows the data wherever it travels. The workflow functions with precision and efficiency: Concentric AI’s Semantic Intelligence™ platform autonomously classifies data and applies the corresponding Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) labels. Subsequently, when a user attempts to share a labeled file through the Kiteworks Private Data Network—whether via managed file transfer, secure email, or an API call—the Kiteworks platform instantly reads the MIP label and enforces a pre-defined security policy associated with that classification. This process of automated enforcement removes the burden of manual intervention from end-users and administrators, eliminating the potential for human error and ensuring that security governance is applied consistently and reliably across all sensitive data exchanges with third parties, from vendors and partners to customers.
Automating Governance and Enforcement
The core of this joint solution is its emphasis on automation, which replaces error-prone manual security processes with consistent, policy-driven governance. Within the integrated ecosystem, administrators can pre-configure a comprehensive set of security policies within the Kiteworks platform, directly mapping them to specific MIP labels generated by Concentric AI. For instance, a document classified as “Internal Use Only” might have a policy that allows sharing with certain domains but restricts downloading, while a file labeled “Highly Confidential” could automatically trigger a far more stringent policy that enforces end-to-end encryption, applies a user-specific dynamic watermark, and completely blocks the ability to download or print the document. This approach effectively removes the security decision-making process from the end-user, who can focus on their primary task of collaboration, confident that the appropriate security controls are being applied behind the scenes.
This shift toward automated governance provides substantial benefits that extend beyond mere risk reduction. It significantly streamlines security operations by reducing the manual overhead associated with managing data sharing requests and applying individual controls. More importantly, it ensures a uniform and consistent application of security policies across the entire organization, establishing a predictable and defensible security posture for all external communications. This level of consistency is not only a best practice but also a critical requirement for demonstrating regulatory compliance to auditors. By automating enforcement, organizations can build a more resilient and trustworthy environment for collaboration, enhancing both their security posture and the efficiency of their business processes without creating friction for users who need to share information to perform their jobs effectively.
Comprehensive Control Over External Data
The collaboration delivers an unparalleled level of granular control over sensitive information, extending an organization’s security perimeter to encompass data even after it has been shared with external parties. Based on the rich contextual classification provided by Concentric AI, the Kiteworks platform can automatically apply a multifaceted suite of sophisticated security measures tailored to the specific risk profile of the data. Key controls include robust, end-to-end encryption that ensures data is unreadable to unauthorized parties both in transit and at rest. Furthermore, the platform enables highly granular access restrictions, allowing administrators to define precisely who can access the data, from which locations, and for how long, with access rights that can be set to expire automatically after a specified period, effectively revoking access once a project or collaboration is complete.
In addition to foundational controls, the solution offers advanced security features designed to protect the most sensitive intellectual property and confidential information. Usage limitations can be automatically enforced to prevent recipients from copying, downloading, or printing sensitive files, drastically reducing the risk of data leakage. For enhanced traceability, dynamic watermarking can stamp documents with user-specific information, such as the recipient’s email address and the time of access, which serves as a powerful deterrent against unauthorized distribution and aids in forensic investigations should a leak occur. Perhaps most significantly, the platform supports “possessionless” editing, a feature that allows recipients to view and edit a document within a secure, browser-based environment without ever taking possession of the file itself. This provides the ultimate level of security by ensuring the original file never leaves the control of the organization.
Addressing Modern Cybersecurity Challenges
Meeting Compliance and Industry Demands
This strategic partnership reflects a significant and accelerating trend within the cybersecurity industry: the pivot toward integrated, ecosystem-based security frameworks that deliver holistic protection. Organizations are increasingly moving away from deploying disparate, single-point products that create security silos and operational complexity. Instead, they are seeking unified platforms where best-of-breed solutions can communicate and work in concert to provide end-to-end security. This collaboration exemplifies that trend by seamlessly combining AI-driven data discovery with a purpose-built platform for secure external communication. It directly addresses the modern reality of a porous enterprise perimeter, where data must flow freely across boundaries to drive business value, but where that flow must be governed by intelligent, automated, and context-aware security controls that adapt to the data’s sensitivity.
The joint go-to-market strategy, which focuses on highly regulated sectors such as healthcare, financial services, energy, and government, underscores the critical need for such an integrated solution. Industries operating under stringent compliance frameworks like HIPAA, GDPR, CMMC, and NIST 800-53 require not just the implementation of security controls but also the ability to provide demonstrable, auditable proof that those controls are being consistently enforced. The Kiteworks platform generates complete, immutable audit trails for every file transaction, offering organizations irrefutable evidence that they are enforcing their data handling policies. This comprehensive logging is essential for passing regulatory audits, conducting security analysis, and responding to incidents, making the combined solution a powerful tool for achieving and maintaining compliance in today’s complex regulatory landscape.
A New Paradigm for Data Security
The strategic alliance between Kiteworks and Concentric AI established a powerful new benchmark for comprehensive data security governance. By seamlessly integrating AI-powered data discovery and classification with automated policy enforcement for external communications, the collaboration provided a truly end-to-end framework for protecting an organization’s most sensitive information. The partnership demonstrated that it was possible for enterprises to maximize their data security investments by ensuring that deep risk insights were translated directly into real-world, automated protection at scale. This enabled organizations to confidently share critical information with external collaborators, knowing that the appropriate security controls were consistently and automatically enforced, thereby strengthening their overall security posture and facilitating secure business operations in a deeply interconnected world.
