StrongestLayer launches AI Advisor to verify unknown senders in real time

StrongestLayer has launched AI Advisor, an inbox-native security assistant designed to verify first-time senders and unknown contacts in real time. The Outlook and Gmail plugin provides instant, AI-powered analysis for any email that raises suspicion, reimagining security awareness by replacing quarterly phishing tests with on-demand verification at the moment of need.

According to StrongestLayer research, AI-generated attacks now fool 60% of trained employees. At the same time, employees receive 45-60 external emails daily, with 25-35% from complete strangers. The challenge is that traditional security tools can’t distinguish legitimate cold outreach from sophisticated social engineering, leaving employees to guess.

The result is security teams waste 160+ analyst hours quarterly investigating legitimate emails, with false positive rates reaching 60-70% as employees forward every uncertain message to IT for manual verification.

Instant verification eliminates employee guesswork

AI Advisor addresses this challenge with a simple action. Employees click the button when uncertain, for first-time vendors, unusual requests from known contacts, or cold outreach that might be social engineering. The system delivers trust scores with specific verification signals for legitimate emails and unambiguous warnings for threats.

“The challenge with email security is determining whether unknown senders are legitimate connections or threats,” said Alan LeFort, CEO of StrongestLayer. “Traditional training tests employees quarterly but offers no help when they’re actually uncertain. Gateways can’t tell legitimate outreach from impersonation. AI Advisor provides instant verification exactly when employees need it.”

AI Advisor delivers three integrated capabilities:

• On-Demand Trust Verification provides instant analysis for any email where employees feel uncertain, removing the burden of knowing what’s suspicious and replacing it with a simple decision: if unsure, click the button.
• In-Context Nano-Training delivers rotating security tips during email analysis, replacing the 15-30 minute training videos that 94% of professionals dislike with micro-learning moments embedded in actual email evaluation.
• Positive Reinforcement System celebrates curiosity instead punishing mistakes, building a culture where checking uncertain emails is normalized rather than treating every question as a security failure.

Proven results across security and business operations

For security teams, AI Advisor delivers immediate operational results. False positive rates drop from 60-70% to less than 1%, mostly eliminating “Is this vendor real?” tickets that consume analyst time. Organizations recover 160+ analyst hours quarterly previously spent investigating legitimate cold outreach, allowing security teams to focus on actual threats rather than verifying new vendors. The platform creates a 100x increase in security touchpoints without requiring additional analyst involvement.

For organizations, AI Advisor safely enables new business connections and opportunities that might otherwise be ignored, stopping revenue loss from overlooked legitimate outreach. Organizations preserve openness to innovation while maintaining security, achieving 400-500% ROI within 12 months by transforming unknown sender risk from organizational liability into a managed process.

“Before StrongestLayer, my SOC burned 15-20 hours weekly triaging ‘is this legitimate?’ False positives, false negatives, and tickets from employees who couldn’t distinguish cold outreach from social engineering,” Eric S., CISO, Global top 50 law firm.

“StrongestLayer’s detection catches the sophisticated attacks before they reach users, and now AI Advisor eliminates the false alarm investigations entirely—our analysts only see genuinely suspicious submissions. What surprised me most was the business upside. Our employees can now confidently engage with legitimate new vendors and partners instead of ignoring outreach out of fear. You rarely find security tools that simultaneously reduce analyst burden while enabling revenue-generating activities,” he concluded.