A Google AI Agent, Big Sleep, has helped detect and foil a cyberattack for the first time, the tech giant's CEO Sundar Pichai said in an X post.

"Our AI agent Big Sleep helped us detect and foil an imminent exploit. We believe this is a first for an AI agent - definitely not the last - giving cybersecurity defenders new tools to stop threats before they’re widespread," said Pichai.

Big Sleep, an AI agent developed by Google DeepMind and Google Project Zero, actively searches and finds unknown security vulnerabilities in software.

In a blog post, Google highlighted that in November last year itself Big Sleep was able to find its first real-world security vulnerability. The AI agent has been able to find multiple real-world vulnerabilities since then, it added.

In the latest instance, Big Sleep was able to detect an SQLite vulnerability, a critical security flaw. Big Sleep with the help of Google's threat intelligence was able to predict the imminent vulnerability and cut off the threat in advance.

"We believe this is the first time an AI agent has been used to directly foil efforts to exploit a vulnerability in the wild," it stated.

It explained that Big Sleep is also being deployed to help improve the security of widely used open-source projects.

It added that cybersecuirty agents like Big Sleep are a "game changer" as it allows security teams to focus on high-complex threats.