Aidan Daly
Booz Allen Hamilton announced a strategic investment in cybersecurity firm Reality Defender through its corporate venture capital arm Booz Allen Ventures to strengthen its artificial intelligence and cyber portfolio.
In a press release Wednesday, Matt Keating, head of AI security at Booz Allen, said, “Sophisticated AI models are increasingly being used to manipulate and deceive, posing a real risk ranging from the battlefield and research labs to financial systems and communities nationwide.”
“To combat these threats, we need tools to validate and secure multimodal content, such as videos, images, audio recordings, and phone calls,” Keating added. Reality Defender has an AI-powered platform that can be used to detect AI-generated content, like deepfakes, at scale. The company was named the most innovative startup in the 2024 RSA Conference Innovation Sandbox contest.
Wes Blackwell, managing director of Booz Allen Ventures, said, “This investment reinforces our mission to identify, field, and deploy dual-use technologies for good, leading to technological advantage for the U.S. and our partners. There is so much promise in AI, but we need to ensure it’s deployed responsibly and securely and that it’s trustworthy.”
Ben Colman, co-founder and CEO of Reality Defender, said Booz Allen and Reality Defender could work together to counter emerging AI-driven threats and secure communications from the growing synthetic media risks.
Booz Allen Ventures invests in early-stage companies developing dual-use technologies. Other AI-related investments of the $100 million VC fund since its inception in 2022 includes Credo AI, HiddenLayer, RAIC Labs and Starfish.
