OpenAI is in early talks to acquire Trail of Bits, the cybersecurity firm that finds and fixes vulnerabilities in open-source software, according to sources cited by The Information. The discussions are described as early, and no deal has been confirmed by either company.
The reported move would be an unusual one for OpenAI, which has spent the past two years buying its way into chips, devices and enterprise AI. Trail of Bits is a 40-plus-person security shop founded in 2012, known for auditing the code that much of the internet quietly depends on.
Why OpenAI would want Trail of Bits
Open-source projects are the plumbing of modern software, and they are frequently maintained by small teams with limited security budgets. Trail of Bits built its reputation by stepping into that gap, auditing widely used open-source code and reporting flaws before attackers find them.
For OpenAI, that expertise would matter on two fronts: hardening its own products and services, and answering a growing wave of scrutiny over how AI-generated code is reviewed before it ships. Buying an established audit team is faster than building one from scratch.
A wider wave of AI dealmaking
The talks land in the middle of an unusually busy stretch of AI acquisitions and takeover chatter. Self-driving simulation software maker Applied Intuition has received investment offers valuing it at more than $30 billion, up from $15 billion in June, according to The Information.
Separately, AI customer service agent maker Decagon has hired a bank to evaluate acquisition interest, Business Insider reported. Decagon, last valued at $4.5 billion, held early talks with ServiceNow, though a ServiceNow spokesperson said those discussions are no longer ongoing.
Those reports point to the same pattern: after years of enormous venture rounds, large tech companies are increasingly buying their way into promising AI markets rather than waiting for startups to grow into their valuations. Recent examples cited in the Decagon report include Nvidia's acquisition of Hugging Face for $12.9 billion and Stripe's purchase of OpenRouter for around $8 billion.
