Cognizant Launches 'Cognizant Secure AI Services' to Help Enterprises Safely Scale Agentic Systems

Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) has announced the launch of Cognizant Secure AI Services, a new integrated offering designed to help enterprises protect, govern, and scale AI and agentic systems across their business. As AI systems are deployed enterprise-wide, organizations are increasingly embedding AI into decision-making, automation, customer engagement, and core workflows. These systems are evolving to include agentic capabilities that autonomously reason, converse, and execute tasks while interacting with enterprise data, systems, and external applications. While this shift offers transformative business value, it also introduces new security, governance, and runtime risks that traditional cybersecurity models cannot address. Traditional security was built for deterministic software with predefined behaviors. In contrast, AI systems operate based on probabilities and adapt to situations, making them susceptible to exploitation in ways traditional tools cannot detect. Compromised models, malicious prompts, and agent malfunctions can trigger large-scale incorrect actions. The newly announced service is designed to help enterprises transition from 'implicit trust' to 'provable trust' based on evidence, traceability, and continuous assurance. Cognizant ensures reliability through a two-stage approach: build and run. First, in the build phase, it protects models, data, and pipelines before deployment. Second, in the run phase, it continuously monitors AI behavior in production, detects unauthorized operations, manages and mitigates unsafe actions, and preserves evidence for audit compliance. Vishal Salvi, Global Head of Cognizant’s Cybersecurity Service Line, stated, 'AI is fundamentally changing the behavior of enterprise systems. These systems are adaptive, context-aware, and increasingly autonomous. To protect them, continuous assurance across both build and runtime environments is essential. Through Cognizant Secure AI Services, we are helping enterprises embed trust into their AI systems from day one and maintain that trust as systems evolve.' Cognizant Secure AI Services is built on three foundations: 'Agent Development Lifecycle (ADLC)'—incorporating protection into every stage of design, build, test, deploy, and change. 'Cognizant Neuro® Cybersecurity'—a system that centralizes signals across AI and enterprise systems for threat response, correlation analysis, and audit evidence preservation. 'Responsible AI'—a layer of continuous trust and assurance provided through Cognizant Trust™, supporting traceability, policy enforcement, and compliance as AI systems scale. By integrating these functions, the service aims to comprehensively cover AI model and data protection, access management, safe operation, agent behavior management, and generative AI risk mitigation. Cognizant is already working with over 250 organizations worldwide, particularly in highly regulated industries, to assess, protect, and operationalize AI-driven digital transformation programs. Early use cases include preventing deepfake fraud and model tampering, as well as protecting autonomous agents and generative AI systems running across enterprise workflows. Arjun Chauhan, Practice Director at Everest Group, noted, 'In today’s rapidly changing environment, organizations are seeking a more comprehensive approach to AI security rather than a patchwork of point solutions. There is a growing demand for an integrated framework that addresses risks from the build phase through the execution and operational lifecycle. Furthermore, the ability to integrate best-in-class technology into a consistent operational model is critical for achieving real-world results.' Cognizant Secure AI Services, built for integration with existing systems, supports regulatory compliance and operational resilience, helping organizations scale AI safely through the practice of 'provable trust.'