June 22 - IBM on Monday announced a strategic collaboration with OpenAI intended to fold advanced AI capabilities into enterprise security workflows, with the explicit aim of helping firms respond more quickly to rapidly changing cyber threats. The company said its stock climbed 3.6% during after-hours trading following the disclosure.
Under the arrangement, IBM has joined the OpenAI Daybreak Cyber Partner Program. The partnership will see IBM and OpenAI work to integrate protective AI tools directly into business operations, with the goal of enabling companies to identify and reduce security risks more efficiently.
As part of the tie-up, IBM introduced a new application security service that leverages OpenAI’s cyber-focused models. IBM said the service is designed to help organizations detect and validate software vulnerabilities with increased speed and precision compared with current approaches.
The new offering is built on Project Lightwell, an initiative IBM launched last month aimed at deploying engineers and AI tools to improve the security of open source software. IBM and Red Hat have committed $5 billion in support of Project Lightwell, and the project will incorporate OpenAI’s cyber capabilities alongside other frontier AI models to assist with code review and remediation.
Project Lightwell is described as a vehicle to apply AI-driven tools and engineering resources directly to the task of securing open source components that are widely used in enterprise codebases. As part of that effort, OpenAI’s cyber models will be used in combination with other advanced models to review code and recommend or implement fixes.
Commenting on the deal, Mark Hughes, global managing partner for cybersecurity services at IBM Consulting, said: "The OpenAI Daybreak Cyber Partner Program expands our access to a broader set of advanced AI capabilities, which we deploy within our clients’ environments to help surface the most relevant risks faster and help them act with confidence."
The announcement ties three elements together - the Daybreak Cyber Partner Program, IBM’s new application security service, and Project Lightwell - with the stated objective of accelerating vulnerability detection and remediation across enterprise software, including open source components.
Note: The article reflects the details and statements provided by IBM regarding the partnership, the features of the new security service, the role of Project Lightwell, and the $5 billion backing from IBM and Red Hat. No additional claims or projections are made beyond those disclosures.