New coalition unites C-level executives, Heads SOC, and AI / Innovation leaders with cybersecurity experts to rigorously train, test, and prove AI defenses in production-like environments; inaugural virtual event scheduled for June 18, 2026
BOSTON, June 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Corelight, Dropzone AI, SCYTHE, SimSpace, and Sondera today announced the formation of the AI Proving Grounds Consortium (AIPGC), a coalition of cybersecurity experts that helps C-level, SOC, and AI / Innovation leaders quickly and safely move from a proactive cyber defense posture to preemptive cyber resilience by rigorously training, testing, and proving their AI defenses before deploying them to production.
The AIPGC addresses one of the industry’s most urgent challenges: ensuring organizations can trust AI systems operating in mission-critical security environments.
“We’re in an unprecedented time; the weaponization of AI is bigger than any one organization can handle alone. That’s why we’re forming the AIPGC: to pool our collective ideas and cyber expertise to fuel preemptive defenses for the world’s leading organizations,” said Peter Lee, CEO of SimSpace and the primary organizer behind the AIPGC. “AI is transforming cybersecurity at extraordinary speed, but confidence alone is not enough. Organizations need a way to rigorously train, test, and validate AI agents together with human cyber operators under realistic conditions before those teams and systems can be trusted in production.”
The Consortium was formed in response to a widening industry gap between perceived readiness and operational preparedness. Recent SimSpace research found that nearly 80% of security leaders report high confidence in their AI defenses, while measured readiness scores can be as low as 30% before repeated simulation exercises. Additionally, many organizations continue to rely on legacy preparedness methods, including tabletop exercises and certification courses, rather than realistic simulation-driven validation.
The AIPGC aims to help organizations close that gap by enabling leaders to stress-test AI agents and human teams in production-like environments that model sophisticated, real-world adversarial behavior. Through collaboration, training, live exercises, and executive-level discussions, the Consortium seeks to help enterprises safely accelerate AI adoption while strengthening cyber resilience.
The founding Consortium partner organizations include Corelight, Dropzone AI, Scythe, SimSpace, and Sondera.
“AI is becoming a core member of the security team, but trust is the prerequisite for adoption in the SOC. It has to be proven,” said Edward Wu, Founder and CEO of Dropzone AI. “The future of the SOC isn’t a single AI agent. It’s multiple AI agents working together, alongside human analysts, across investigations, threat hunting, intelligence and response. As AI takes on a bigger role in security operations, trust is earned through visibility into how these systems perform in real environments, under real operational pressure, before relying on them in production. This consortium can help establish the benchmarks and standards organizations need to confidently adopt AI and accelerate its full operational impact on security.”
As part of the launch, the AIPGC will host its inaugural virtual event, Move from Proactive Defense to Preemptive Resilience, on Thursday, June 18, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. ET. The 90-minute program will feature a keynote presentation from FC, also known as Freakyclown, Co-Founder of Cygenta and former Head of Offensive Cyber Research at Raytheon, followed by a panel discussion and live Q&A focused on building trust in AI prior to deployment to production. To register, click here.
The event will bring together C-level executives, Heads SOC, and AI / Innovation leaders with cybersecurity experts to discuss how organizations can proactively validate AI-driven systems and human performance against evolving threats before introducing those technologies into live production environments.
Organizations interested in joining the Consortium, participating in upcoming events, or requesting the AIPGC Charter can learn more at www.aipgc.ai.
About the AI Proving Grounds Consortium (AIPGC)
The AI Proving Grounds Consortium (AIPGC) is a collaborative initiative uniting industry leaders, researchers, and technology innovators to advance the safe, measurable, and real-world validation of AI systems in cybersecurity and beyond. Built on the belief that AI must be proven under realistic conditions before it can be trusted in production, the Consortium promotes rigorous testing, continuous evaluation, and shared best practices across people, processes, technologies, and AI. AIPGC provides a forum for members to collaborate on realistic simulations, agentic workflow validation, operational readiness, and the responsible adoption of AI-driven capabilities. By bringing together organizations across the cybersecurity ecosystem, the Consortium helps close the gap between AI innovation and proven operational performance.
About the AIPGC Partner Organizations
Corelight – a leader in network detection and response (NDR), fueling the AI SOC with industry-leading data and detectionsDropzone AI – the leading agentic SOC companySCYTHE – the leading Adversarial Exposure Validation platform, continuously testing organizational cyber defenses to prove whether they actually workSimSpace – the realistic cyber simulation infrastructure for continuously training, testing, and validating AI agents.Sondera – the real-time control plane for enterprise AI agents, providing deterministic, policy-as-code guardrails that govern what agents are allowed to do in production.
PR contact:
Amy Rice
Amy.rice@simspace.com
508-978-6635
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SOURCE SimSpace Corporation
