Kiteworks Acquires Bonfy.AI to Bridge AI Gap in Data Governance

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Kiteworks has finalized the purchase of AI-driven data security firm Bonfy.AI, a strategic move designed to enhance real-time policy enforcement over sensitive information shared by both human users and artificial intelligence systems.

Amit Toren, Kiteworks’ chief business officer, highlighted that Bonfy.AI’s technology expands the company’s ability to provide control in an AI-driven landscape, with its team accelerating the development of Kiteworks’ Data Control Plane.

The acquisition integrates Bonfy.AI’s capabilities into Kiteworks’ existing content-sharing infrastructure, which secures data transfers across enterprise networks, external partners, and internal systems. This includes features such as regulatory compliance, governance frameworks, and audit trail tracking. Bonfy.AI specializes in an AI-native content-security platform that safeguards sensitive data during human workflows and AI-agent interactions. Its core functions include real-time data classification, context-aware policy enforcement, and governance across software-as-a-service (SaaS) environments.

While the financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed, industry analysts estimate the transaction value to be in the “tens of millions of dollars.” The integration of Bonfy.AI’s technology will enable Kiteworks to extend policy enforcement to data exchanges involving AI assistants, autonomous agents, and cross-platform file sharing. This addresses a critical gap in enterprise data protection, where traditional inventories of sensitive data often fail to regulate its usage or movement once it is accessed.

Tim Freestone, Kiteworks’ chief strategy officer, emphasized that the acquisition closes a significant gap in data governance by enabling real-time decisions about data movement, with the ability to substantiate those choices to regulators months later.

Bonfy.AI’s approach classifies data at the moment of exchange and applies security policies before transfers are completed, even when AI systems are involved. Combining this with Kiteworks’ control plane for secure data exchange creates a unified policy model that governs data in motion and in use, applicable to both human and machine interactions.

The value of the acquisition lies in its runtime decision-making capabilities, which prioritize contextual analysis over simplistic pattern matching, enforce a single policy framework for all workflows, and ensure provable compliance at the time of data transfer. The integration is positioned as an extension of Kiteworks’ existing platform rather than a separate product.

Cohen, the company’s CEO, stated that Bonfy.AI was built on the principle that data risk arises during movement, not storage, and that controlling it requires runtime context analysis before exchanges complete. He noted that Kiteworks provides the necessary control plane and scalability to apply this technology globally.

Bonfy.AI was established in early 2024 by Gidi Cohen and Danny Kibel, emerging from stealth mode in June 2025 after securing $9.5 million in seed funding. The acquisition aligns with broader industry trends, including the increasing complexity of data governance in hybrid environments and the need for adaptive security measures to counter evolving threats.

Key technical aspects of the integration include inline classification of data during transfers, enforcement of policies across diverse platforms, and the ability to track compliance in real time. This development underscores the growing importance of AI-native security solutions in addressing the unique challenges posed by autonomous systems and human-AI collaboration.