The week opened in the Israeli tech ecosystem with three stories that capture the full spectrum of activity — from a young cybersecurity startup with Nasdaq ambitions, through Intel Israel's dramatic turnaround, to a research project that peered behind the curtain of enterprise AI adoption.
Zenity: Another Israeli Cyber Story Aiming for Nasdaq
Israeli cybersecurity company Zenity, founded in 2021, has set itself an ambitious goal: to be mentioned in the same breath as Check Point, Wiz, and Cato Networks. So said co-founder and CEO Ben Kliger in an interview with Globes.
Zenity specializes in securing AI agents — one of the hottest segments in the industry. Its product ensures that autonomous agents, which connect to all enterprise systems and can operate independently, don't run amok or get hijacked by hackers. "It's spreading like wildfire. We're seeing millions of agents in every organization," Kliger said.
The company employs about 230 people, 150 of them in Israel, with annual revenue in the tens of millions of dollars. So far it has raised about $60 million from investors including Intel Capital, Upwest Ventures, Vortex, DTCP, and Third Point Ventures. Kliger, who previously worked under Wiz founders Assaf Rappaport and Yinon Costica at Microsoft, now lives in New York but intends to return to Israel.
Intel Israel: From the Depths to All-Time Highs
In just one year, Intel has gone from a $20 stock price low to an all-time high above $90 — a 153% gain year-to-date and 355% over the past twelve months. The story behind these numbers, as reflected in employee accounts from Israel, is one of an organizational culture transformed from top to bottom.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who took the helm just over a year ago, slashed the global workforce from 109,000 to 85,000 — a 22% cut. In Israel, headcount dropped from about 12,000 to roughly 8,000 (LinkedIn data), returning to 2012 levels.
But the cuts came with a deep cultural shift. Employees describe how "emails from senior executives to middle management came to an end. Lip-Bu writes directly to all employees." Meeting volume dropped significantly, cloud access was restored, and even the coffee stations came back. Remaining employees received 8.2%-10% base salary increases and stock compensation that became highly valuable with the share price surge.
The Study That Reveals: AI Is Intimate, Personal, and Not Shared
Intent marketing company Natural Intelligence opened its doors to researchers from Tel Aviv University who wanted to study how AI adoption actually works inside a real organization. The findings are surprising.
The research, led by Prof. Lior Zalmanson and Dr. Maayan Cohen, found that employees develop an intimate relationship with their AI tools — and refuse to share their personal prompts with colleagues. "Every employee feels it's their personal assistant, and doesn't want others to see how they really work," explained CTO Lior Schachter.
The findings show that 9% of employees reported saving 5 to 20 hours of work per week thanks to AI. The company has reached a point where all its ad copy on Google and Bing is AI-generated, scoring 25% higher quality ratings than human-written ads.
The Bottom Line
Today in the ecosystem: Zenity joins the ranks of Israeli cyber companies aiming high, Intel is proving that rapid cultural change is possible even at a giant corporation, and the Natural Intelligence research reminds us that the real AI revolution — the quiet, personal one happening between employee and machine — is just getting started.
