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Cybersecurity Awareness Month: New videos, games, and ready-to-use resources

Key takeaways

  • Adaptive combines ready-made security awareness training, company-specific lessons, realistic impersonation simulations, Agentic Email Security, and AI Governance in one platform that links what employees learn with the threats they receive and the AI tools they use.
  • The comparison positions Adaptive as covering both preparation and direct protection: teams can create a lesson from a policy, test the procedure through a realistic attack, detect malicious email requests, and apply guidance when employees use AI.
  • Adaptive is listed with a 4.9/5 rating across G2 and Gartner, while the article says Dune has no reviews on G2 or Gartner.
  • Adaptive supports simulations and practice across email, SMS, conversational voice, and executive deepfake scenarios, and can generate editable company-specific modules with examples, quizzes, and branding through AI Content Studio.
  • The platform’s email and AI controls include analyzing message intent and context, investigating employee reports, quarantining confirmed threats, discovering AI usage, inspecting prompts and pasted content, and coaching or blocking according to policy.
  • Customer examples cited include Core Health & Fitness ($100M+ revenue) praising the deepfake feature and pre-built modules, Dental Depot ($60M+ revenue) highlighting Phish Triage and AI for easier email review, and Bay Federal Credit Union ($15M+ revenue) using Adaptive to instantly craft phishing simulations and training exercises from organization-specific sources.

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Prepare employees for convincing attacks and protect them during everyday work.

An employee can recognize a phishing test and still struggle with an urgent call from someone who sounds like their manager. They can complete an AI-use course and still paste confidential information into a personal AI account. Preparation matters, and so does protection when employees encounter those situations during everyday work.

Adaptive combines ready-made security awareness training, company-specific lessons, and realistic impersonation simulations with Agentic Email Security and AI Governance. One unified platform for human and agent security in the AI era connects what employees learn with the threats they receive and the AI tools they use.

For teams comparing Adaptive Security vs. Dune Security, the reason to choose Adaptive is that combination of preparation and direct protection. Create a lesson from your policy, test the procedure through a realistic attack, detect malicious email requests, and apply guidance when employees use AI.

Adaptive 4.9/5 G2 & Gartner rating • No reviews for Dune on G2 & Gartner

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Relevant training, realistic practice, and help when employees report a threat.

“The deepfake feature is what really drew us in, but the other pre-built modules quickly appealed to us as well.”

Jake Kienholz, Information Security Director, Core Health & Fitness ($100M+ revenue)

“Phish Triage makes it really easy to jump in there and review emails…especially with the AI. It makes our jobs way easier.”

Gus Ramirez-Sandoval, IT Manager, Dental Depot ($60M+ revenue)

“I’ll give Adaptive some sources about our organization, and instantly it can craft both phishing simulations and training exercises.”

Richard Roark, SVP and Chief Technology Officer, Bay Federal Credit Union ($15M+ revenue)

Why choose Adaptive over Dune Security?

Choose Adaptive to run company-specific training and attack simulations alongside email protection and controls on everyday AI use. Your team can address both employee preparation and the risky interactions that happen outside a training campaign.

Start with ready-made lessons, then use AI Content Studio when employees need guidance on your procedures. Practice those procedures through email, SMS, conversational voice, and executive deepfake scenarios. With Agentic Email Security and AI Governance, detected threats and risky AI behavior can also inform employee risk and targeted training.

Dune’s User Adaptive Risk Management approach combines simulations, training, business context, and signals from connected security systems to prioritize intervention. Adaptive lets your team create company-specific training, detect and quarantine malicious messages, and enforce AI-use policies through the selected Adaptive products, all within one unified platform for human and agent security in the AI era.

  • Launch without building everything yourself. Use ready-made training and simulations, with customization available when your business needs it.
  • Turn policies into practical lessons. Generate editable modules with company-specific examples, quizzes, and branding.
  • Practice handling a convincing impersonation. Use organizational context and executive personas across email, SMS, voice, and deepfake experiences.
  • Act on malicious email requests. Analyze message intent and context, investigate employee reports, and quarantine confirmed threats.
  • Apply AI policy during work. Discover AI usage, inspect prompts and pasted content, and coach or block according to policy.

How does Adaptive compare with Dune Security awareness training?

Adaptive combines a ready-made training library with AI Content Studio. Your team can launch existing modules, generate new lessons from policies and prompts, and edit the material so employees learn the procedures your company expects them to follow.

For a customer-support team, that could mean a lesson explaining which customer information can be entered into an approved AI assistant. For finance, it could mean teaching the required verification steps before changing a vendor’s payment details.

Dune also provides training content and risk-based learning. Its library covers subjects including phishing, AI, and social engineering, while its security awareness offering adjusts training to demonstrated weaknesses. Its Stevens Institute of Technology case study describes AI-assisted customization delivered by Dune for the customer to approve.

Adaptive’s AI Content Studio gives administrators a direct workflow for creating and revising lessons. When a policy changes, your team can generate the corresponding module, edit the examples and knowledge checks, and assign it to the relevant employees.

That lesson sits within a unified program that connects employee preparation with email protection and AI governance.

How do Adaptive and Dune Security phishing simulations differ?

Adaptive creates phishing simulations using organizational context, employee roles, publicly available information, and executive personas. Coordinated email, SMS, and voice scenarios let employees practice recognizing an attack as it develops across several interactions.

A finance employee might receive an email requesting a payment change, followed by a call from someone who sounds like an executive. Adaptive’s AI voice persona responds as the employee asks questions or insists on verification. The exercise tests whether they maintain the procedure when the caller applies pressure.

Dune also advertises multichannel, deepfake, and conversational simulations. Its red-team offering includes scenarios tailored to organizational workflows and chained attacks, such as a voice call followed by a phishing message. Its website additionally lists encrypted messaging channels.

The decision therefore goes beyond whether a platform offers voice or deepfake testing. With Adaptive, your team can build the lesson, configure the impersonation scenario, and use the employee’s response to guide follow-up within the same program.

For an Adaptive vs. Dune Security evaluation, use a procedure your employees actually follow. Compare the realism of the persona, the conversation when an employee challenges the request, the administrator’s editing controls, and the resulting guidance.

How does Adaptive email security compare with Dune Security?

Adaptive provides its own Agentic Email Security product. It combines machine-learning and LLM analysis to assess behavioral signals, organizational context, and the intent behind a message, helping identify phishing, impersonation, and business email compromise.

Verdict explanations and confidence scores help administrators understand why a request was flagged. Configurable thresholds govern automated response and human review, while confirmed threats can be quarantined across affected inboxes. Adaptive connects to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace through APIs without requiring MX-record changes.

Dune’s published email capabilities focus on using email and mailbox signals to understand user risk. Its integrations describe collecting Microsoft Outlook and Gmail activity, and incorporating alerts from Microsoft Defender. Those signals inform risk assessment; they do not establish an equivalent Dune-native inbound email detection and quarantine product.

For teams seeking a Dune Security alternative that also provides email protection, this is a concrete difference in scope. Adaptive can supply the detection and remediation capability as well as the training program.

Phish Triage supports employee-reported messages, and detected threats can inform employee risk and targeted training. Adaptive connects the malicious request, the response, and the employee’s next lesson within one unified platform.

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How do Adaptive and Dune Security compare on AI governance?

Adaptive AI Governance helps your team see which AI and SaaS tools employees use across monitored browsers and enrolled devices, including personal-account activity. It inspects prompts and pasted content for sensitive information and policy violations, then supports coaching, redirection, alerts, or blocking.

That gives your AI policy an operational role. If an employee attempts to paste restricted customer information into an unapproved assistant, your team can apply a response at that interaction and reinforce the approved process.

Dune describes monitoring policy violations and behavioral signals across connected identity, email, endpoint, and data-loss-prevention systems. Those events can influence risk and remediation. Its reviewed product materials do not establish equivalent native AI-tool discovery, prompt inspection, or controls on AI submissions.

Adaptive also connects AI and shadow IT behavior to the employee risk score used for training and simulations. Risky activity can automatically trigger relevant training.

AI Governance becomes part of the same unified security program. Teach the policy, apply it during work, and reinforce it when behavior shows a gap.

How do Adaptive and Dune Security use employee risk?

Both platforms aggregate signals to help your team prioritize employees who need attention. The distinction is how those signals enter the risk model.

Adaptive combines training and simulation results with signals generated directly by its selected protection products: malicious messages detected by Agentic Email Security and risky AI activity identified by AI Governance. The same unified platform generates these protection signals and uses them to inform employee risk.

Dune combines training engagement and simulation performance with role, access, and security signals from connected systems. Elevated risk can initiate identity or security workflows, including additional authentication or access-related responses.

For your team, the choice is whether to bring detection and AI-use controls into Adaptive alongside employee risk, or use Dune to aggregate risk with signals and enforcement supplied by connected tools.

How much ongoing work does Adaptive vs. Dune Security require?

Adaptive automates employee syncing, new-hire campaigns, recurring delivery, dynamic groups, and follow-up training. Ready-made content supports a quick launch, while AI Content Studio lets your team introduce company-specific lessons when needed.

Dune also automates training assignment, delivery, and tracking, with risk-based interventions informed by user behavior. Its compliance offering includes scheduled training and completion reporting.

With either platform, administrators still set program priorities and review results. Adaptive’s advantage for teams selecting its broader offering is one unified view of training, email threats, and AI activity to help prioritize that work.

Can we evaluate Adaptive without replacing our existing security tools?

You can start with Adaptive’s security awareness training and phishing simulations while retaining your current email, identity, endpoint, and data-protection tools.

Choose a defined employee group and a procedure to test. Coordinate campaign schedules and reporting workflows so employees receive a clear experience during the evaluation.

If you also evaluate Adaptive Agentic Email Security or AI Governance, define the users, environments, and response policies in scope. Where products overlap, establish which one handles quarantine, blocking, or employee notifications.

If Dune currently triggers identity or access workflows for your organization, review those dependencies before changing the deployment. A training-platform transition should preserve the controls your organization still needs.

What support will we get when switching to Adaptive?

Adaptive’s customer success team helps with implementation, program configuration, rollout, and ongoing adjustments.

For training, start with employee provisioning, active campaigns, required courses, historical records, and reporting needs. Identify the lessons you can launch from the library and the procedures that would benefit from custom content.

For Email Security and AI Governance, review deployment scope, permissions, policies, and administrator responsibilities. Your first rollout should demonstrate the capabilities you selected: a relevant lesson, a realistic attack scenario, and the protection workflows your team intends to use.

Share your renewal timing and program requirements so the transition can be planned around the work already underway.

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Adaptive and Dune Security: Features Compared

Compare what employees learn, what your administrators can create, and which products perform detection and enforcement. The tables distinguish Adaptive’s own protection products from Dune’s documented use of connected security systems.

AI security awareness training and phishing simulations

Adaptive Dune Security
Company-Specific Training Interactive modules built from your policies, with editable examples, quizzes, and executive persona videos. Dune works with customers to prepare customized training for review and approval.
Organization-Specific Simulations OSINT-informed scenarios using employee and organizational context, with coordinated email, SMS, and voice attacks. Scenarios tailored to roles, departments, vendors, and internal workflows.
Conversational Voice Phishing AI personas respond to employees in real time, giving them practice questioning and refusing requests. Conversational red teaming evaluates responses to pressure and channel switching.
Executive Deepfake Simulations Executive personas used in training and interactive attack simulations. Deepfake simulations are advertised; equivalent administrator controls for custom executive video creation are not offered.
Coordinated Multichannel Attacks Link email, SMS, and voice within a simulated attack. Chained simulations across channels, including voice-to-email sequences.
Follow-Up Training Targeted training and dynamic groups support additional practice. Immediate feedback and risk-based training follow simulated risky behavior.

Agentic Email Security: Detect and respond to malicious requests

Adaptive Dune Security
Email Threat Detection and Verdicts Layered ML and LLM analysis evaluates behavior, intent, and organizational context, producing verdicts with confidence scores and explanations. Uses mailbox signals and connected email-security detections for risk assessment; native inbound detection and message-level verdicts are not offered.
Business Email Compromise and Impersonation Analyze requests to change payments, disclose information, or bypass approval. Simulations test susceptibility; integrated security events contribute to user-risk assessment.
Automated Remediation Automatically quarantine confirmed threats across affected inboxes, with configurable confidence thresholds. Triggers connected security workflows; equivalent native inbox quarantine is not offered.
Connection to Training Real threats can update employee risk and trigger targeted training within the unified platform. Integrated email and behavioral signals inform risk-based testing and remediation.

AI Governance: Discover usage and reinforce policy

Adaptive Dune Security
AI and SaaS Discovery Browser and device visibility into tools and personal-account activity within monitored environments. Connected-system monitoring is offered, with equivalent native AI and SaaS discovery not offered.
Sensitive-Data Inspection Inspect prompts and pasted content for sensitive information and policy violations. Ingests data-security signals; native prompt and paste inspection is not offered.
Policy Enforcement Contextual ways to coach, redirect, alert, or block based on the risky behavior and policy violation. Risk-based identity and security workflows; equivalent controls on AI submissions are not offered.
AI Adoption Reporting Usage and adoption reporting by employee, team, department, and tool. User-risk and behavioral reporting; equivalent dedicated AI adoption reporting is not offered.
AI Governance Connection to Risk AI and shadow IT activity feeds the same employee risk score as training and simulations. Observed policy violations can inform risk and training; AI-specific coverage depends on the signals available.

Running the program end-to-end

Adaptive Dune Security
Ongoing Program Automation Automated delivery, employee syncing, new-hire campaigns, dynamic groups, and follow-up training. Automated training assignment, delivery, tracking, and risk-based intervention.
Connected Employee Risk Combine training, simulation, email-threat, and AI-usage signals in one unified platform through the corresponding Adaptive products. Combine business impact, simulations, training, and integrated security signals.
Implementation Support Hands-on help with configuration, rollout, and ongoing needs. Guided onboarding and customer success support are offered.
Updating Company-Specific Lessons Administrators generate and edit lessons in AI Content Studio. Custom content support is offered; confirm the self-service editing workflow during evaluation.
Protection Beyond Training Own Email Security and AI Governance within one unified platform. Risk-based responses connect with existing identity and security systems.

Customer Results and Feedback

Customer-Reported Result Adaptive Evidence
Simulation Performance Mohonk Mountain House reported a 3% employee failure rate.
Positive Employee Feedback Mohonk Mountain House reported an average employee content rating of 4.6/5.
Strong Onboarding and Time to Value First State Bank rated its onboarding experience and time to value 10/10.
Customer Recommendation First Round Capital rated its likelihood of recommending Adaptive to a peer 10/10.

Adaptive Security vs. Dune Security pricing

Adaptive pricing depends on employee count, selected products, and optional capabilities such as voice phishing. Build the proposal around the program you want to run: training and simulations, Agentic Email Security, AI Governance, or a combination.

For Dune Security pricing, request a proposal identifying the simulation channels, training services, integrations, and response workflows included. Establish which existing products remain necessary to provide email detection, data inspection, and enforcement.

An equivalent comparison should include:

  • The same employee population and contract term.
  • Required simulation channels and executive impersonation capabilities.
  • Ready-made content, custom creation, and ongoing editing.
  • Email detection, investigation, and remediation.
  • AI discovery, inspection, and policy controls.
  • Implementation and ongoing support.

Compare the total cost of the capabilities you need. Include the selected Adaptive products in one proposal, and Dune plus any separate email-security or AI-governance tools required to provide comparable coverage in the other.

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FAQ

Why choose Adaptive as a Dune Security alternative?

Choose Adaptive to combine company-specific training and realistic simulations with its own Email Security and AI Governance products. Your team can prepare employees, detect malicious requests, apply AI-use policies, and connect those events to employee risk and follow-up.

Can Adaptive create training from our policies?

Yes. AI Content Studio generates editable lessons from policies and prompts. Your team can revise examples, quizzes, and branding before assigning the training. Ready-made modules are also available.

Does Dune Security provide email protection?

Dune offers email-related risk monitoring and integrations with email-security tools. They do not offer a native inbound email detection and quarantine product equivalent to Adaptive Agentic Email Security.

Does Dune Security provide AI governance?

Dune describes policy monitoring and risk-based workflows using connected security signals. Equivalent native AI discovery, prompt inspection, and controls on AI submissions are not offered. Adaptive offers those capabilities through AI Governance.

Do both Adaptive and Dune Security use employee risk scores?

Yes. Both connect training and simulation activity to employee risk. Dune also emphasizes business impact and integrated security signals. Adaptive’s own Email Security and AI Governance products contribute real-world events that can guide targeted training.

Can we keep our existing security tools while evaluating Adaptive?

Yes. Start with training and simulations while retaining existing protections. If you evaluate Adaptive Email Security or AI Governance, define the deployment scope and response responsibilities before enabling overlapping controls.

What should we test during an Adaptive vs. Dune Security evaluation?

Bring a company policy, an impersonation scenario, and a real operational requirement. Compare content creation and editing, employee interaction during the simulation, reporting, and follow-up. If email protection or AI governance is required, identify which product performs detection and enforcement in each proposal.

Bring employee preparation and everyday protection together.

Give employees relevant lessons and realistic practice. Help them verify a convincing caller, question a suspicious payment request, and use AI without exposing confidential information.

Adaptive connects that preparation with Agentic Email Security and AI Governance through one unified platform for human and agent security in the AI era. See how the lessons, simulations, and protection workflows work together around your organization’s needs.

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Adaptive Team

Adaptive Team

As experts in cybersecurity insights and AI threat analysis, the Adaptive Security Team is sharing its expertise with organizations.

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Human and Agent Security for the AI Era.