KnowBe4 launched email and collaboration security protection through its Defend product for Google Workspace. This is an extension of its Defend email security portfolio that brings advanced threat detection, explainable AI verdicts, and real-time employee coaching to the more than three billion users of Google Workspace worldwide.
“Google empowers productivity and collaboration. KnowBe4 protects the digital workforce,” said Greg Kras, chief product officer, KnowBe4. “Together, this new release enhances the email and collaboration security that IT and security professionals need to better protect their organisations. We are bringing explainable, multi-engine AI detection and real-time coaching together in a single, API-native layer, so every blocked threat also becomes a teachable moment. Our deep collaboration with Google enables us to offer a unified platform that delivers trust and a strong security culture.”
At the core of Defend for Google Workspace is a multi-engine behavioural AI model, trained on KnowBe4’s proprietary telemetry of more than 1.15 billion daily event signals and 16 years of behavioral insight. The platform evaluates messages across multi-layered intent signals simultaneously, catching advanced BEC, zero-payload phishing, and prompt injection attacks that native Google controls often miss.
Every intercepted threat in Defend for Google Workspace becomes an opportunity to build a more resilient workforce. The moment a risky email is detected, the intended recipient receives an immediate, contextual teachable moment notification, turning a potential incident into instant, real-world security training delivered at the exact point of risk.
Once a malicious variant is confirmed, Defend for Google Workspace integrates natively with PhishER Plus to automatically hunt down, pull back, and neutralise matching threats across every enterprise Gmail inbox in under two minutes. This significantly reduces a multi-hour SOC containment process into an autonomous, near-instant response.
Ahead of today’s launch, KnowBe4 ran an early adopter programme to validate real-world impact. Across early adopter environments, Defend for Google Workspace processed 539,384 emails, intercepting 810 dangerous threats (1 in every 666 emails) and 5,491 suspicious threats that had otherwise made it past native Google protections. The platform also classified 361,070 productivity-related emails, saving early adopters an average of 10.96 hours each week.
Defend has brought KnowBe4 customers immense value, including Mark Burtenshaw, ICT manager security and compliance, The City of Edinburgh Council: “Defend’s value is proven every day in the statistics shown in its threat intelligence dashboard. The banners have also dramatically increased employees’ everyday vigilance to phishing attacks.”
Another customer, Jeremy Demetrius from GovSpend said: “KnowBe4 Defend has streamlined our entire triage workflow, allowing us to identify and remediate complex BEC and calendar injection threats in seconds. It’s remarkably intuitive, integrates seamlessly into our environment, and saves our security team hours each week while keeping organisational risk at an all-time low.” Defend for Google Workspace will be available on September 15, 2026, to KnowBe4 customers running Google Workspace, across SMB, mid-market, and enterprise environments.
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