Lakera secures AI you build.
Aona governs AI your employees use.
Lakera Guard is an API firewall for AI applications you ship to customers, with research-grade detectors for prompt injection and jailbreak. Aona is workforce governance: how your employees use ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, and other AI tools. Different buyers, different problems. Pick by which question you are answering.
AI security platform for builders embedding GenAI in their own products, with an LLM firewall, agent runtime, and a newer Workforce module.
Workforce AI Security platform purpose-built for the regulated mid-market, focused on workforce AI usage with hard-block DLP, file redaction, and a 90-day self-serve trial.
Pick Lakera if you are building AI features into your product and need runtime guardrails for your users' inputs. Pick Aona if your problem is governing how employees use third-party AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude). Most organisations will not need both, because the buyer is different (engineering for Lakera, security/compliance for Aona).
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When to pick which
Five scenarios. The honest answer for each one.
Your engineering team is shipping a customer-facing AI feature and needs runtime guardrails around their own LLM calls.
This is exactly Lakera's core. Aona does not do this and exited that wedge in April 2026.
You are running prompt injection or jailbreak red-team exercises on AI applications you build.
Lakera AI Red Teaming is an actual product line. Aona has no equivalent.
600-seat law firm needs to stop associates pasting matter info into ChatGPT.
Aona is endpoint hard-block DLP on submit. Lakera Workforce is newer in this space and not endpoint-led.
Healthcare network needs HIPAA-mapped evidence reports for employee AI usage.
Framework templates ship out of the box on Aona. Lakera positions on threat detection, not framework evidence.
You have AppSec exposure on AI features in your product AND a Shadow AI workforce problem.
Different products. Lakera covers the application side; Aona covers the workforce side. Pick the right tool for each problem.
What each tool actually does
Three columns on the Aona side because the browser plugin and the native endpoint app cover different surfaces. Browser-only customers will see fewer green checks than customers with both.
| Capability | Aona browser plugin | Aona native app | Lakera |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discover | |||
| Workforce shadow AI discovery on managed devices | Browser surface | Browser plus native AI apps | Workforce module newer |
| Application-side LLM input / output telemetry | Lakera Guard core | ||
| Govern | |||
| EU AI Act / ISO 42001 / sector framework templates | Threat-detection-positioned | ||
| Prompt injection plus jailbreak detection benchmarks | Basic detection | Research-led, public benchmarks | |
| Protect | |||
| Browser plugin on the employee device | Lakera Workforce does not advertise one | ||
| Native desktop AI app interception | |||
| API guardrails around your own LLM calls | Aona dropped this in April 2026 | Lakera Guard core | |
| Hard-block DLP at submit on the workforce side | Modal pauses, no override | Risk-scoring, enforcement is policy-level | |
| Operations | |||
| AU data residency | |||
| SIEM / Grafana / Splunk integration | Roadmap | Roadmap | |
Based on vendor documentation as of April 2026. Email trust@aona.ai if you find a factual error.
What it takes to ship each one
- Microsoft Intune (Windows MDM, only path shipped)
- Microsoft Entra (admin SSO + user/group sync)
- Engineering capacity to wire the LLM firewall into your application
- Identity provider for SSO (Workforce module)
Where each one falls short
From public docs and customer interviews. If you find a factual error, email trust@aona.ai.
- No application-side LLM firewall. If you are building AI features into your product, Aona does not protect your LLM calls. Lakera Guard does.
- No prompt-injection or jailbreak benchmarks. Lakera ships research-grade detectors with public benchmarks (Gandalf dataset, multilingual coverage). Aona's classifiers are not benchmarked at that level.
- No application-side agent runtime protection. Aona's native endpoint app inspects agents on the employee machine (process, network, MCP); Lakera secures agent runtime inside the app you build, which Aona does not cover.
- No SDK or deep observability integrations (Grafana, Splunk). Lakera ships these for application-side telemetry.
- Workforce module is newer and less proven than Lakera Guard. Endpoint surface is not advertised.
- No out-of-the-box AI governance framework templates (EU AI Act, ISO 42001, sector). Lakera positions on threat detection, not framework evidence.
- No browser plugin or native desktop AI app interception. Lakera's surface is API-led, not endpoint-led.
- AU data residency is not on offer.
Aona and Lakera, side by side
Aona and Lakera serve different buyers and solve different problems. If you are confused about which one you need, the simplest test is: who is doing the AI usage you want to govern? If it is your customers using your AI product, that is Lakera. If it is your employees using third-party AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude), that is Aona. Most organisations only have one of these problems clearly enough to act on. The other becomes urgent later.
If your problem is workforce AI, try Aona
90-day self-serve free trial. Deploys via Intune and Entra in under an hour. Workforce-only, by design.