We may as well start calling it AI Data Domain as Dell is making an AI Assistant available for PowerProtect, the rebranded Data Domain, along with a bundle of other resilience news encompassing identity protection and AI services.
PowerProtect AI Assistant deliversan enhanced conversational interface for managing cyber resilience across assets, tasks, restores and reporting. We’re told proactive daily briefs surface potential risks before they escalate, and a human-in-the-loop approval workflow allows teams to review and approve actions before they are taken. These capabilities help organizations surface issues sooner and, Dell says, move faster when response time matters most.
Dave Vellante, co-founder and chief analyst, theCUBE Research, said: “Agentic AI is changing both the speed and scope of cyber risk. AI-enabled attacks and enterprise agents can operate at machine speed, amplifying the impact of compromised identities, excessive permissions or errors. Encrypted data stolen today could also be decrypted by future quantum computers. We believe Dell’s focus on connecting protection, detection and recovery across AI environments, identity and infrastructure addresses an important enterprise need — containing disruption, sustaining critical operations and restoring systems and data to a verified, trusted state.”
The AI Assistant combines real-time product telemetry with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and external LLMS. Grounding responses in live system data and curated Dell product knowledge allows the platform to deliver contextual, conversational insights directly within the interface Admins can use natural-language text, voice commands, or image uploads to retrieve real-time details on protection policies, registered assets, storage systems, and overall system health
Every action changing the environment, such as triggering a backup or running a restore plan, requires a Human-in-the-Loop approval step. This ensures teams maintain full control while resolving issues faster. Dedicated Reporting and Restore Agents extend these capabilities, generating aggregated reports and guiding recovery operations directly from the chat interface.
Watch a YouTube video about this new AI Assistant here.
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Enhanced integration between PowerProtect and PowerScale automatically initiates, schedules and manages retention lock local snapshots for rapid recovery. PowerScale SmartSync support lets organizations synchronize snapshots to ObjectScale for an additional recovery copy and long-term retention.
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New PowerProtect identity resilience capabilities help organizations restore a clean, trusted copy of their identity platforms, including Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID and Okta. Customers can restore identity platforms and access controls to a clean, trusted state without lengthy manual procedures.
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Dell is offering identity threat detection through Dell Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for Identity. The service provides 24×7 monitoring and response for identity threats, including suspicious authentication activity, compromised accounts and privilege misuse. When the service detects defined attack patterns, Dell experts can initiate automated response actions to help contain the threat.
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The latest version of Dell PowerStore software introduces quantum-safe,data-in-flight encryption, over Fibre Channel connectivity. Customers can now protect data against harvest-now, decrypt-later attacks – when used with supported Dell PowerEdge servers and configurations.
Note that there is no public, specific “smoking-gun” evidence of a named harvest-now, decrypt-later (HNDL) operation in which encrypted data was collected solely for future quantum decryption and later discovered. Passive collection is designed to leave little or no detectable trace, so the absence of a public case is expected rather than disproof – which is good news for suppliers selling protection against harvest-now, decrypt-later attacks.
New AI services
There are three new services being introduced by Dell;
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Security Hardening for Dell AI Factory service helps organizations securely deploy Dell AI Factory infrastructure with security controls aligned to their IT and security standards. Dell experts assess physical, virtual and application layers, identify configuration risks that could affect AI workloads and provide prioritized recommendations to reduce exposure.
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Resilience Operations for AI service starts with what matters most to the business. Dell experts work with organizations to identify their most critical AI capabilities, then build the recovery policies and procedures to help keep them protected. Dell delivers a prioritized plan for what AI applications to protect and how to recover them when disruption occurs.
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Dell Post-Quantum Readiness Assessment identifies cryptographic exposure across IT infrastructure and devices, prioritizes migration actions and provides an inventory and risks ranked by criticality.
Availability
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PowerProtect identity resilience capabilities for Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID and Okta are now available.
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Dell Managed Detection and Response for Identity is now available.
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Dell Security Hardening for AI Factory will be available this month.
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Dell Resilience Operations for AI are now available.
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PowerProtect AI Assistant expanded capabilities are now available.
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The latest PowerStore software will be available in November 2026.
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PowerProtect and PowerScale snapshot orchestration integration will be available December 2026.
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Dell Post-Quantum Readiness Assessment will be available in November 2026.
Get more information about the AI Assistant in PowerProtect Data Manager 20.1 here.
