Modelyo CEO Warns Data Must Remain Owned and Encrypted Amid AI Growth
Benny Meir, co-founder and CEO of Modelyo, emphasized the critical importance of data ownership and security in the evolving AI landscape during the Calcalist and Mizrahi Tefahot Growth Conference. He highlighted that data is the "fuel of the new world" and stressed the need to ensure it remains under the control of its rightful owners rather than third parties. Meir explained that while cloud services commonly encrypt data at rest and in transit, data being actively processed remains vulnerable, especially in large data centers that power AI systems.
Meir outlined the technological progression from human-to-human communication to sensor data, chatbots, and now AI agents that will increasingly make autonomous decisions, including physical actions via robots. He warned that trusting AI agents or robots requires end-to-end encryption of data and commands to prevent exposure of sensitive information, even from contextual clues in queries and responses.
Drawing from his personal experience during the October 7 Iron Swords war, Meir recounted how his unit had to rely on public cloud resources due to insufficient local computing power, which led to data exposure incidents. This, he said, underscores the inadequacy of current cloud models for sensitive data. Modelyo’s solution keeps encryption keys exclusively with the client, effectively placing a "safe" inside the cloud that only the data owner can open. Meir argued that sharing data with platforms like ChatGPT or Anthropic without such protections is no longer viable.
He concluded by asserting that the market for secure, client-controlled encryption solutions will grow rapidly, and that Modelyo’s approach is validated through cryptographic and mathematical proofs. Ultimately, Meir reiterated that data is the future’s essential resource and must remain securely owned by its creators.
