Cohere Plans to Acquire Aisle to Add AI-Powered Code Security

Enterprise AI platform provider Cohere announced it has signed a letter of intent to acquire Aisle, a cybersecurity startup whose AI agent platform discovers source-code vulnerabilities and generates proposed fixes. The proposed acquisition would also establish a dedicated cybersecurity business called Cohere Cyber.

Aisle’s platform analyzes software for previously unknown vulnerabilities, validates potential findings, evaluates exploitability and helps teams prioritize remediation. The companies disclosed the agreement on Oct. 15 but did not provide a purchase price or expected closing date.

Aisle says its platform and research team have identified more than 500 previously unknown vulnerabilities across more than 100 codebases in the company’s first year out of stealth. That includes all 12 vulnerabilities addressed in OpenSSL’s January 2026 security release and 18 of 24 vulnerabilities fixed in an Oct. 14 update to curl, the widely used open-source data transfer tool and library.

Cohere began as a developer of natural language processing models and has since expanded into enterprise AI software, including its North platform for AI agent building, corporate data search and business automation. Cohere plans to use Aisle’s technology to add software vulnerability detection and remediation capabilities, improve monitoring and governance of AI agents and expand its security offerings for enterprise and government customers. Both companies support deployment within customers’ own infrastructure, including on-premises and isolated environments. Neither company has shared details on a combined product or a possible integration timeline.

Aisle CEO and co-founder Ondrej Vlcek, formerly chief executive of Avast, will lead Cohere Cyber as senior vice president. Co-founder Jaya Baloo will become Cohere’s chief information security officer, and co-founder Stanislav Fort will lead AI security research as a vice president. Cohere also plans to expand Aisle’s Prague operation into a global center for AI cybersecurity research.

The proposed acquisition follows Cohere’s September agreement to merge with German AI company Aleph Alpha, a transaction that was still awaiting regulatory approval when the companies announced it. Cohere said these deals reflect its continued investment in Europe, which also includes its recent acquisition of Reliant AI, a biopharma AI company with operations in Berlin and Montreal. Cohere noted it believes Europe is becoming a more prominent center of development for sovereign AI and that European governments and businesses are seeking AI systems that meet their security, privacy, compliance and data sovereignty requirements.

The Aisle acquisition would also bring developer-focused security tools into Cohere’s planned Cohere Cyber business. Aisle’s GitHub and GitLab integrations analyze proposed code changes for vulnerabilities before they are merged, allowing developers to address issues during code review. On October 14, the company announced several new capabilities, including an MCP server to enable AI coding assistants such as Claude Code and Cursor to access Aisle’s security findings directly within a developer’s editor. Another feature evaluates the exploitability of vulnerabilities in web applications and APIs in a test environment. Aisle also introduced an AI package firewall designed to block malicious open-source dependencies before they reach developer machines or build pipelines.