On stage at the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit 2026, in São Paulo, OPLIUM and Cyera took the stage together for a featured session to defend an idea as simple as it is uncomfortable: you cannot govern the artificial intelligence that you cannot see. The session “How Data Security Maturity Enables AI Governance” condensed, in twenty minutes, what the two companies have been observing in real evaluations — and began with an uncomfortable provocation.

Held in São Paulo, the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit is one of the main security and risk management gatherings in Latin America, bringing together CISOs, cybersecurity leaders, and Gartner analysts around topics such as leadership, risk management, application and data security, and cybersecurity operations. It was in the event's exhibit showcase, a space dedicated to demonstrations and real cases, that OPLIUM and Cyera brought to the stage the discussion about the link between data protection and AI governance.

George Chaves, Director of Innovation and New Business at OPLIUM, opened the session with a provocation: “In the twenty minutes of this conversation, our companies' artificial intelligence will read thousands of files. Part of them, no one classified. Part of them, no one knows who accesses. Part of them, no one even knows exists. We should, indeed, use AI to innovate and accelerate business, but we cannot govern AI without seeing the data it consumes.”

“You cannot govern the AI that you cannot see,” George Chaves, from OPLIUM.

The provocation is well-founded. In evaluations conducted by OPLIUM with Cyera's platform, scanning just 5% of the environment is enough to reveal millions of sensitive records without any classification, data accessible to “the entire organization,” repositories with no owner or purpose, and hundreds of AI agents with unrestricted access. The control marked as “compliant” in the questionnaire appears, in the reality of the data, completely open.

Cristiano Monteiro, Tech Lead LATAM at Cyera, who shared the stage with George, explained: “When we connect the platform to the real, agentless environment, what appears is impressive: sensitive data without classification and agents consuming this data without governance. Cyera exists to shine this light — to discover, classify, and give context to data before AI consumes it.”

“It is necessary to see and classify data before AI consumes it,” Cristiano Monteiro, from Cyera.

The impact is not just technical — it is financial, and in both directions: in the risk that materializes and in the resources that are wasted. A single assessment was able to identify millions in exposure, combining potential fines and breach costs. Added to this is a chapter rarely associated with security: the money spent storing data that nobody uses. Duplicate, obsolete, and forgotten databases bloat the cloud bill while expanding the risk surface. Minimizing data, in this scenario, is the rare move that protects and saves money at the same time.

And the clock is ticking. Data is multiplying across cloud, SaaS, and collaboration; AI is expanding the exposure surface with copilots and agents; and regulation is tightening, with the LGPD in force and the horizon of specific rules for artificial intelligence.

Felipe Almeida, Territory Manager at Cyera, pointed out: “The adoption of AI in Latin America is not going to wait for anyone to get ready. Companies that treat data security as a foundation will accelerate with confidence; the others will discover their own exposure the most expensive way. Data protection has ceased to be a compliance cost to become a competitive advantage.”

“Data protection has ceased to be a compliance cost to become a competitive advantage,” Felipe Almeida, from Cyera.

It was at this point that the presentation shifted from diagnosis to strategy. OPLIUM's proposal is a data-centric defense-in-depth — eight layers ranging from classification and access control to privacy, AI usage governance, and culture, all revolving around the company's most valuable asset. Cyera illuminates the data; OPLIUM operates, decides, and remediates.

Adonias Filho, Chief Commercial Officer at OPLIUM, summarized: “Diagnosis without action does not protect. The value is not in seeing the risk, but in reducing it in a sustained way. This is what the partnership between OPLIUM and Cyera delivers: transforming visibility into real and continuous risk reduction, and making data protection a strategic asset.”

“Diagnosis without action does not protect: the value lies in reducing risk in a sustained way,” Adonias Filho, from OPLIUM.

The conclusion left for the audience is also the purpose that unites both companies: data security does not slow down artificial intelligence, it is what allows you to accelerate with confidence. Seeing, protecting in depth, and governing the use of AI has ceased to be a compliance project. It has become the license to innovate.