How a forgotten node can put Oracle Java back in production

Azul Intelligence Cloud AI Assistant is a new technology announced by enterprise Java company Azul that addresses the growing security and licensing risks in Java ecosystems. The AI-powered service allows software engineering teams to query their live production Java environment and identify security vulnerabilities and licensing infringements with real-time, grounded-in-data answers.

This replaces traditional static reports that become outdated quickly due to frequent changes in Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) and software deployments.

Scott Sellers, co-founder and CEO of Azul, explains that these reports are "accurate on the day they're generated, and increasingly wrong after that" because of factors like JVM spin-up, patching, drifting, and retirement. The Azul Intelligence Cloud AI Assistant solves this by providing continuously updated records of the Java environment using two key components: JVM Inventory, a live catalog of every JVM instance running anywhere, and Code Inventory, a runtime record of which code actually executes in production.

The technology is timely as AI models such as Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s Aardvark have been able to autonomously discover real-world vulnerabilities. This has led to a shorter weaponization gap, with vulnerabilities being exploited in as little as 5 days, down from the previous median of 32 days. The Azul Intelligence Cloud AI Assistant offers two primary benefits to software teams: it answers questions about the Java environment in plain language and queries historical information for further analysis.

The market for Java runtime security and analytics is crowded, with players such as Contrast Security, Dynatrace, Fortify (now part of OpenText), Imperva, and Datadog all offering various solutions. However, the value of runtime context is emphasized by Andrew Krug, head of security advocacy at Datadog, who stresses that it is "absolutely critical for understanding the real risk in the production environment."

The Azul Intelligence Cloud AI Assistant fills a critical gap in the market by providing real-time, actionable insights into the security and licensing risks in modern Java environments.