Alterion Draco
by Alterion
A runtime control plane that discovers, monitors and enforces policy on enterprise AI agents without agent code changes.
Draco is Alterion's runtime control plane for enterprise AI agents. It sits between agents and enterprise systems, inventories sanctioned and shadow agents, watches prompts, tool calls and payloads in real time, and blocks high-risk actions before they run, with no SDK or agent code changes required.
Draco is a runtime control platform from Alterion, a San Francisco company co-founded by Alharith Hussin (a former McKinsey partner) and Asim Husain (a former Google engineering VP). Alterion announced general availability on July 16, 2026. Draco runs as an independent layer between AI agents and the systems they touch. It discovers sanctioned, shadow, SaaS, endpoint and custom agents, inventories their prompts, tool calls and token spend, and profiles each agent's runtime identity. According to the launch release, detection draws on runtime behavior, network traffic, workload metadata and endpoint activity across on-premises, public cloud and SaaS environments. Programmable guardrails evaluate every prompt, action and response and can stop high-risk actions such as data deletion or production changes before they execute. Alterion says no agent code changes or SDK integrations are needed and that Draco works across AI gateways, LLM vendors and infrastructure. The analysis comes from Helix, Alterion's intelligence layer (available September 15, 2026), which combines specialized small language models, a graph neural architecture and persistent enterprise memory to judge sequences of agent actions as well as single events. Alterion claims early benchmarks show Helix is 10-15x more cost-effective than general-purpose models at millisecond latency. Deployment is private, inside the customer's environment or VPC, and the vendor says typical rollouts take days. Draco maps controls to SOC 2, ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF and the EU AI Act, produces audit evidence packages, and feeds SIEM, SOAR and GRC systems. A companion product, Aquila, extends enforcement to employee endpoints. Alterion says it serves Fortune 500 customers in healthcare, financial services and technology but names none, and pricing is not published.
A CISO or AI governance lead at a regulated enterprise that already has AI agents in production and lacks a single inventory and enforcement point for them.
One runtime view of every agent's prompts, tool calls and spend, with guardrails that block high-risk actions before they execute and evidence packages for auditors.
At a Glance
- Category
- Governance & Security
- Pricing
- Contact for pricing
- Target Market
- CISOs, CIOs, AI Governance Leads, Security Operations Teams
- Deployment
- Self-hosted, Hybrid
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, United States
Key Features
- ✓Agent discovery and inventory
Detects sanctioned, shadow, SaaS, endpoint and custom agents and inventories their prompts, tool calls and token spend, so security teams know which agents exist.
- ✓Runtime guardrails
Applies preventative policy checks to every prompt, action and response and can stop high-risk actions such as data deletion before they execute.
- ✓Helix behavioral intelligence
Uses Alterion's Helix layer of small language models, graph analysis and persistent memory to judge sequences of agent actions and their intent along with isolated events.
- ✓No-code deployment
Requires no agent code changes or SDK integration and works across AI gateways, LLM vendors and infrastructure, which avoids re-engineering existing agents.
- ✓Compliance mapping and audit evidence
Tracks controls against SOC 2, ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF and the EU AI Act and generates audit-ready evidence packages on demand.
- ✓Security tooling integrations
Sends findings to SIEM, SOAR, SOC and GRC systems so agent risk shows up in the workflows security and compliance teams already use.
- ✓Private deployment
Runs inside the customer's environment or VPC, with Helix analysis kept in customer infrastructure so agent data does not leave the enterprise.
Use Cases
- •Shadow agent discovery
A security team finds unsanctioned agents and SaaS AI features in use across clouds and endpoints and brings them into one governed inventory.
- •Preventing destructive agent actions
An operations agent that tries to delete data or change production systems is stopped by a runtime guardrail before the action executes.
- •Regulatory audit preparation
A compliance team maps agent controls to ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF or the EU AI Act and exports evidence packages for auditors on demand.
- •Agent cost and usage tracking
Platform owners track token spend and tool calls per agent to see which deployments drive cost and where usage looks abnormal.
- •Feeding agent threats into the SOC
Detected agent threats and policy violations flow into existing SIEM and SOAR pipelines so analysts triage them alongside other security alerts.
Ideal For
Best For
- ✓Building an inventory of sanctioned, shadow, SaaS and custom AI agents running across clouds and endpoints
- ✓Blocking destructive agent actions such as data deletion or production changes at runtime
- ✓Producing audit evidence mapped to SOC 2, ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF and the EU AI Act
- ✓Regulated organizations in healthcare and financial services that require governance tooling to run inside their own environment
Not Ideal For
- ✗Small teams or startups looking for self-serve, published pricing, since Draco is sold only through enterprise sales with no listed price or trial
- ✗Buyers who require independent proof before shortlisting: as of October 2026 there are no public reviews, named customers or third-party benchmarks of the product
- ✗Teams that only need design-time model evaluation or prompt testing during development, which is not where Draco operates
Deployment
Market Analysis
Pros
- ✓Agentless approach avoids instrumenting each agent with an SDK
- ✓Runs inside the customer's environment, which suits data residency requirements in regulated sectors
- ✓Covers discovery, enforcement and compliance evidence in one product, with SIEM/SOAR/GRC export
- ✓Vendor holds an AICPA SOC 2 Type II attestation
Cons
- ✗No public pricing, trial or self-serve option
- ✗Very new: generally available since July 2026, with no G2, Capterra or Hacker News reviews found as of October 2026
- ✗Customer claims (Fortune 500 in healthcare, finance, tech) are unnamed, and the Helix cost benchmark is vendor-reported
- ✗Endpoint governance is sold as a separate product (Aquila)
Pricing
Enterprise
Contact for pricing
- ✓Agent discovery and inventory
- ✓Runtime guardrails
- ✓Compliance mapping and audit evidence
- ✓Private deployment in customer environment
Alterion publishes no list prices, metering unit or trial for Draco as of October 2026. It is sold to enterprises through direct sales (info@alterion.ai), so expect a negotiated contract.
Security & Compliance
Sources
This page was written from 6 sources, 4 on domains other than alterion.ai.
- 1.alterion.ai — dracovendor
- 2.alterion.ai — introducing dracovendor
- 3.prnewswire.com — alterion launches draco a runtime control plane for enterpri
- 4.prnewswire.com — alterion launches helix the intelligence layer for the agent
- 5.yourtechdiet.com — alterion launches draco a runtime control plane for enterpri
- 6.citybiz.co — alterion launches helix to govern ai agent behavior in real
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