Noam Schwartz’s daughter was born in July 2015 on Manhattan’s East Side. So, in effect, was his company. As Schwartz spent three months in and out of the hospital – she was born remarkably early, at 26 weeks – he felt aimless, until he came across explicit content in files from “one of the biggest cloud companies in the world” and “something in my mind snapped.” There, in the NICU, the Army veteran’s mission came into focus: He would work to help companies optimize their Trust and Safety departments.
At the time of his inspiration, those same departments were effectively on islands, doing their level best to reactively combat threats. As Schwartz recalled in a 2022 interview, “there wasn’t really a lot they could do,” at least until he teamed up with “a bunch of my old co-founders” to create ActiveFence, “a proactive technology tools set or content for trust and safety teams to use to manage the entire workflow.”
Ten years on, the company has helped more than 3 billion people stay safe, buoyed by more than 750 million daily interactions. And, of course, the velocity of security has increased in the age of Artificial Intelligence, the battle over which Schwartz calls “a frontline in the fight for safety and integrity online.”
The latest salvo from ActiveFence came in the form of a partnership with Reality Defender to “combat deepfakes in real time,” as “traditional moderation tools are no longer enough.” The collaboration enables real-time moderation, instant enforcement and centralized visibility, the cornerstones of effective fraud combat in the AI era. The deal followed announcements that ActiveFence was using Nvidia technology to power the “AI Safety Flywheel,” enabling “the creation, testing, refinement, and deployment of trusted AI models.”
Seven years on, the mission remains personal for Schwartz. Yes, he wants to “protect all of the online companies out there,” but the driving force behind his work hasn’t changed one iota. “Deep, deep down,” he said, “I want to protect my daughter… I know I can’t really control it and stop everything, but I’m going to do everything I possibly can.”