CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Bay vs Cranium

Bay is an AI agent security platform that gives enterprises visibility into every agent across devices, browsers and cloud workloads, and control over what those agents do in real time. Cranium sells Cranium ONE, one platform for end-to-end AI security and governance, which it describes as infrastructure and LLM-agnostic. CISO Tribune files both under AI model and agent security. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Bay
  • Cranium
Bay vs Cranium: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
BayBay is an AI agent security platform that gives enterprises visibility into every agent across devices, browsers and cloud workloads, and control over what those agents do in real time.bay.ioCraniumCranium sells Cranium ONE, one platform for end-to-end AI security and governance, which it describes as infrastructure and LLM-agnostic.cranium.ai
What it sells
  • Bay[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]Bay is an AI agent security platform covering agents on devices, in browsers and in cloud workloads. Bay returns allow, ask, steer or block decisions on agent actions at runtime.
  • Lighthouse[6]Lighthouse is Bay's embedded agentic system that drafts policy from an organization's own agent activity.
  • Wave[3]Wave is the ephemeral binary Bay uses to deploy through an existing MDM or EDR.
  • Discover[1][16]Gives visibility into every AI model, agent, dataset and vendor across an enterprise and builds a system of record for them.
  • Govern[1][3][4][5][8][12]Defines, implements and enforces AI policy mapped to frameworks such as the NIST AI RMF and the EU AI Act.
  • Secure[1][6][13]Stress-tests models against adversarial threats and applies runtime defenses and targeted remediation.
  • Prove[1][7]Generates real-time compliance evidence, called Cranium AI Cards, to share with customers, partners and regulators.
Categories
Headquarters
Not stated on its pagesShort Hills, United States[3]
Founded
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Not stated on its pagesPrivately held[9][15]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
Not stated on its pages
  • May 21, 2026Cranium AI and ISTARI announced a strategic partnership combining Cranium AI's security and governance platform with ISTARI's cyber resilience advisory expertise.[3]
  • May 21, 2026Cranium AI announced it has acquired Aiceberg, an agentic AI security and risk management company, and Aiceberg CEO Alex Schlager becomes Cranium AI's Chief Technology Officer.[15]
  • May 21, 2026Cranium AI and ISTARI, a cyber resilience advisory firm, announced a strategic partnership to offer organizations an AI security and governance solution.[8]
  • February 4, 2026Cranium AI announced it discovered an exploitation technique for hijacking agentic AI coding assistants and released free open-source IDE plugins for developers.[16]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: listed, seen October 24, 2026[9]
Who it fits
Not written yetFrom its own pages, the company sells mainly to buyers who run AI across many models, since it states that its platform works with any model, any framework. It has pages for industries named Financial Services, Life Sciences and Telecommunications. It also has pages by job function for Compliance & Risk, Governance & Policy, Third-Party & Vendor Risk and Data Science. The pages also say that global carriers and banks are on board.
Last verified
November 5, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Bay and Cranium are both filed under AI model and agent security.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Bay's primary category is AI model and agent security; Cranium's is AI governance.
  • Bay is also filed under Endpoint management and application control and Workforce AI usage security.
  • Bay lists Bay, Lighthouse and Wave. Cranium lists Discover, Govern, Secure and Prove.
  • Cranium is headquartered in Short Hills, United States.
  • Cranium is privately held.

What it sells: Bay

What Bay does[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
Bay maps every agent, MCP server, extension, model and skill on devices on its first scan. Bay builds a contextual entity graph of the users, MCP servers, SaaS apps and access connected to each agent. Bay deploys with one script through an existing MDM and does not require a proxy. Bay keeps full transcripts of prompts, actions and MCP calls.
What Lighthouse does[6]
Lighthouse drafts policy from an organization's own agent activity. Users answer 7 questions about risk appetite, and Lighthouse recommends a setting for each question and builds the policy. Bay replays 30 days of agent history to show what a policy would do before enforcement.
What Wave does[3]
Bay is agentless and deploys through an existing MDM or EDR using Wave, an ephemeral binary. There is no persistent agent to maintain and no proxy in the path.

Questions about Bay and Cranium

What do Bay and Cranium sell?
Bay sells Bay, Lighthouse and Wave. Cranium sells Discover, Govern, Secure and Prove.
Are Bay and Cranium in the same category?
They share AI model and agent security. Bay's primary category is AI model and agent security and Cranium's is AI governance.
Where are Bay and Cranium headquartered?
Cranium is headquartered in Short Hills, United States.
Who owns Bay and Cranium?
Cranium is privately held.
Who are Bay and Cranium sold to?
From its own pages, the company sells mainly to buyers who run AI across many models, since it states that its platform works with any model, any framework.
What have Bay and Cranium announced recently?
May 21, 2026: Cranium AI and ISTARI announced a strategic partnership combining Cranium AI's security and governance platform with ISTARI's cyber resilience advisory expertise.

About Bay

Bay is an AI agent security platform that gives enterprises visibility into every agent across devices, browsers and cloud workloads, and control over what those agents do in real time. Bay describes AI endpoint security as protection for the AI agents, coding assistants and MCP servers running on employee devices. Bay was founded by three engineers who spent their careers in endpoint and API security. Bay is a Series A stage company.[2][3]

Teams run agents like Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and GitHub Copilot in clusters, cloud workspaces and hosted sessions.[5]

Bay finds and maps agents first. On the first scan, Bay maps every agent, MCP server, extension, model and skill on devices, including ones nobody approved. Bay finds every agent, extension, CLI tool, MCP server, skill and model on employee devices. Bay builds a contextual entity graph of how everything connects: the user behind each agent, the MCP servers and SaaS apps it touches, and the access it holds. Bay scans every agent, package, extension, MCP server and skill for malicious indicators before approval. In the browser, Bay brings shadow AI into view, covering chatbots, extensions and embedded SaaS agents. In cloud environments, Bay discovers agents across virtual machines, Kubernetes, Coder workspaces and hosted sessions.[1][3][5][6][7]

Lighthouse, Bay's embedded agentic system, drafts policy from an organization's own agent activity. Users answer 7 questions about risk appetite, and Lighthouse recommends a setting for each question and builds the policy. Policies can be scoped by IdP group, device or runtime, and can set which MCP servers can read or write. Before enforcement, Bay replays 30 days of agent history to show what a policy would do before any user is affected. Bay also lets teams run any policy in simulation mode to see what it would allow, ask or block. At runtime, Bay enforces guardrails inline with the agentic action and returns allow, ask, steer or block in milliseconds. Bay can also prevent prompt injection attempts at runtime.[6]

Bay keeps records of agent activity. Bay keeps full transcripts of prompts, actions and MCP calls, traceable to the person behind each session. A metadata-only mode in Bay keeps prompts on the device when they must not leave it. Bay ties every prompt and agent action to a real identity, corporate or personal. Bay logs every policy change and agent action with who approved it and whether a person or an agent took it. Every decision in Bay is logged against the policy behind it, ready for auditors. Bay connects to an identity provider, so every policy applies to the right people and groups.[5][6][7][8]

Bay also checks configuration. Bay checks how every agent and AI tool is set up, across devices and cloud workloads, so risky settings can be fixed before an agent puts them to use. Bay spots bypass-permissions mode, sandboxes switched off and unrestricted tool access, rates how serious each one is and shows how to fix it. Bay finds the credentials, tokens and secrets that agents and MCP servers can read.[9]

Bay deploys with one script through an existing MDM and does not require a proxy to route traffic through. Bay deploys through an existing MDM or EDR using Wave, an ephemeral binary, so there is no persistent agent to maintain. Bay tells corporate AI accounts from personal ones, including in personal Chrome profiles. Bay's enterprise customers include Micron Technology, Peloton and ClickUp.[1][2][3][6][7][8]

Bay on the record

Sources

Bay full record

  1. [1]bay.ioBay · bay.io · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Security Researcher — Careers at BayBay · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]AI Endpoint Security — BayBay · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]About — BayBay · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Cloud Workspaces — BayBay · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Platform — BayBay · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Browser — BayBay · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]AI Governance & Compliance — BayBay · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]AI Security Posture — BayBay · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A

Cranium full record

  1. [1]Cranium – Secure & Govern Enterprise AICranium · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Cranium ai security 2023KPMG · kpmg.com · published April 5, 2023 · Tier A
  3. [3]Cranium AI and ISTARI Forge Global Alliance to Drive Enterprise AI Security and GovernanceCranium · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]AI Security & Governance Platform – CraniumCranium · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]AI Security & Governance Solutions – CraniumCranium · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Enterprise AI Security Solutions – CraniumCranium · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]AI Compliance — EU AI Act, NIST & ISO 42001 – CraniumCranium · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Cranium AI and ISTARI Forge Global Alliance to Drive Enterprise AI Security and GovernanceBusiness Wire · published May 21, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Cranium Reviews, Ratings & Features 2026 | Gartner Peer InsightsGartner Peer Insights · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier C
  10. [10]For Security Teams – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]AI Observability & Runtime Monitoring – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]AI Governance & Policy Enforcement – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]AI Red Teaming & Attack Simulation – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]For Compliance & Risk Leaders – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Cranium AI Acquires Aiceberg to Strengthen its End-to-End AI Security, Governance and Agentic AI PlatformCranium AI · published May 21, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Cranium AI Issues Critical Remediation for Vulnerability to Protect Leading AI Coding AssistantsBusiness Wire · published February 4, 2026 · Tier A

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