The Best Security Awareness Training Platforms in 2026: An Honest Comparison

This comparison was produced by Brightside AI. We've done our best to represent every platform accurately, sourcing only from official product pages and documentation. Brightside AI is included and assessed on the same criteria as all other platforms, including our own gaps.

Two years ago, vishing was a theoretical concern in most security briefings. A known attack vector, yes, but one that most security teams treated as edge-case. Today it is an active, daily threat. Voice phishing attacks surged 442% from H1 to H2 2024, driven almost entirely by AI tools that make realistic, scalable voice calls cheap to produce and hard to detect. 47% of CISOs reported encountering deepfake-enabled social engineering attacks in the past year. One CEO authorized a $25.6 million wire transfer after being deceived by an AI-generated video call.

The SAT market has responded, but unevenly. At Brightside, we watched vishing simulation requests go from zero to a consistent stream of inbound interest within six months. That shift in buyer behavior tracks with the broader market: the SAT industry is now worth $6.74 billion in 2026 and growing at 16.82% annually. But market growth does not mean every platform has kept up with the threat. Seven of the ten platforms in this comparison still cannot run a fully self-serve AI vishing simulation. That gap is what this article is about.

This is an honest breakdown of where ten leading SAT platforms stand in 2026, with vishing capability as the primary lens, because that is where the most meaningful differentiation exists right now. It is not a ranking.

What Changed and Why It Matters

Annual compliance training was already being replaced by continuous, behavior-based programs before AI arrived. What AI did was accelerate the gap between attacker capability and defender readiness on both sides. Attackers now have access to voice cloning tools, real-time conversational AI, and OSINT automation that makes a convincing, personalized vishing call achievable at scale. AI-driven scams surged over 1,200% since the launch of ChatGPT.

On the defense side, the best SAT platforms responded by building agentic AI systems that personalize simulation delivery, automate triage, and measure behavioral risk rather than just completion rates. The platforms that have not caught up are still useful for compliance and phishing awareness, but they leave a growing gap in employee readiness for the attack vectors that are actually being exploited right now.

Vishing is the clearest test of platform maturity because it requires the most technical investment. Any platform can send a phishing email. Very few can run a live, adaptive, GenAI-powered phone call that adjusts in real time to how an employee responds.

How We Evaluated These Platforms

We assessed ten platforms across six dimensions: simulation types, vishing capability, AI usage, course library, reporting, and automation. All platforms were evaluated against official product documentation as of May 2026. Where features are in preview, limited to specific tiers, or unavailable for self-serve setup, we have noted that explicitly.

The ten platforms: KnowBe4, SoSafe, Hoxhunt, Adaptive Security, Jericho Security, Arsen, Riot, Pistachio, Proofpoint, and Brightside AI.

The Vishing Tier Breakdown

This is the fastest way to orient yourself before going into the full comparison.

Tier 1: Full self-serve AI vishing

These platforms can run an outbound, AI-powered live phone call simulation without requiring a sales call, custom setup, or enterprise tier upgrade.

Brightside AI runs GenAI-powered live phone calls that adjust in real time to how the employee responds. Admins build simulations in five steps: attack goal, caller persona, social engineering tactics, voice selection, and review. Hybrid attacks combining a vishing call with a phishing email are built in natively. Executive voice cloning is available from a one to two minute recording. Languages: English, French, German, Italian.

Arsen is technically one of the most developed vishing implementations in this group: emotionally nuanced, accent-aware, unscripted AI dialogue with scheduling logic designed to avoid triggering internal alert systems. Hybrid attack variants include vish-to-phish and barrel phishing. Smishing covers 180+ countries with local numbers. Vishing and smishing are add-on modules, not bundled by default.

Adaptive Security runs real-time AI back-and-forth voice personas across email, SMS, Slack, and video in addition to phone. OSINT-powered, and backed by $81M from NVIDIA, Bain Capital, and the OpenAI Startup Fund. The multi-channel simulation depth here is the widest of any platform in this comparison.

Hoxhunt offers self-serve vishing with role-aware, contextually timed scripts across 40+ languages. Custom deepfake executive voice cloning is available as an add-on service rather than a self-serve admin feature.

Jericho Security delivers agentic conversational vishing that adjusts in real time, with deepfake voice and video on the Premium tier ($4.50/user/month). Holds the first US DoD contract for generative AI defense training and IL5 Authorization. Self-serve with a 7-day free trial, no sales call required, starting at $2.50/user/month.

Tier 2: Partial or limited vishing

KnowBe4 offers callback phishing: a phishing email triggers a phone call, with an AI Callback Template Generation Agent that builds templates automatically. The call records whether sensitive information was shared. This is not a live generative AI conversation. Available on Diamond tier only.

SoSafe vishing is currently an executive demo available in English, German, and French, not a self-serve campaign feature. The Multi-Chain Attack Orchestrator is still in founders-circle co-development as of May 2026.

Pistachio offers Calling Simulations: employees receive a prompt to call a number and hear a simulated voicemail. Inbound only, not an outbound AI call.

Tier 3: No vishing simulation

Riot has no vishing or deepfake simulation. Its strengths are in employee posture management, chatbot-delivered training via Slack and Teams, and a flat $6.89/user/month price with no tier gating.

Proofpoint has TOAD (Telephone-Oriented Attack Delivery) awareness training content but no outbound phone simulation. Its differentiation sits elsewhere: 1.3 trillion messages processed annually, the unique VAP (Very Attacked People) targeting concept, and the Satori AI agent suite for triage and DLP automation.

Full Feature Comparison

Simulation Types

How AI Is Used

Reporting

Honest Gap Analysis

Every platform has weaknesses. Here are the most significant ones, including ours.

KnowBe4: Vishing is callback-only and restricted to Diamond tier. No live AI voice conversation. Deepfake capability is awareness content, not live attack simulation.

SoSafe: Vishing is not a usable product feature yet in any practical sense. EN/DE/FR exec demo only. Multi-Chain Orchestrator is still in founders-circle co-development.

Hoxhunt: Custom deepfake exec video simulation is a bespoke add-on, not something an admin can self-configure. No built-in compliance framework mapping.

Adaptive Security: Interactive AI Avatar and Admin Assistant are still in Feature Preview. Newer platform, so the depth of legacy compliance content is still catching up to incumbents.

Jericho Security: Deepfake Teams simulation is not confirmed on official product documentation. E-learning library depth is less documented than the larger incumbents.

Arsen: Vishing and smishing are add-ons, not bundled. No phish triage or inbox remediation. Limited buyer awareness outside France and French-speaking markets.

Riot: No vishing, no deepfake simulation, no phish triage. If any of these are requirements, Riot is not the right choice.

Pistachio: Microsoft-only. Google Workspace is not supported. Vishing is inbound voicemail only, not an outbound AI call. No phish triage or inbox remediation.

Proofpoint: No phone simulation capability. Best value is realized as part of the full Proofpoint email security stack, which makes it a less natural standalone SAT purchase.

Brightside AI: No smishing. Vishing is limited to English, French, German, and Italian. Brighty is a scripted learning companion, not a real-time AI system. No phish triage or inbox remediation module.

How to Choose

There is no single best platform. The right choice depends on what problem you are actually solving.

If vishing and hybrid attack simulation are your primary requirement: Brightside AI, Arsen, Adaptive Security, Hoxhunt, and Jericho Security are the only platforms that can run fully self-serve AI vishing today. Arsen leads on smishing breadth and hybrid attack variants. Adaptive Security leads on multi-channel OSINT personalization. Brightside AI leads on time-to-first-simulation for lean teams.

If you need enterprise-scale automation and the deepest content library: KnowBe4 remains the most mature platform by volume: 25,000+ phishing templates, 1,000+ training items, 34 languages, and AIDA Orchestration for fully autonomous program delivery. If your primary goal is compliance coverage at scale, KnowBe4 is hard to displace.

If SOC integration and phishing triage are the priority: Hoxhunt Respond, Adaptive Security Phish Triage 2.0, KnowBe4 PhishER+, and Proofpoint Satori are the four most developed triage offerings. Platforms without triage capability (Arsen, Riot, Pistachio, Brightside AI) have a meaningful gap here.

If you have a lean security team and no dedicated SAT admin: Pistachio (true zero-maintenance, 10-minute setup, Microsoft-only), Riot ($6.89/user/month flat, free trial, no tier gating), and Jericho ($2.50/user/month, 7-day trial, no sales call required) are built for this. Brightside AI is also designed for fast deployment via HR integration or CSV upload.

If you are in Europe and compliance is a primary driver: SoSafe has the deepest EU compliance alignment and the largest European customer base. Arsen maps to NIS2, DORA, TISAX, and MITRE ATT&CK explicitly. Both are headquartered in Europe.

On pricing: Most enterprise SAT platforms do not publish pricing. The ones that do (Jericho at $2.50–$4.50/user/month, Riot at $6.89/user/month) are targeting lean teams and mid-market buyers. For KnowBe4, SoSafe, Hoxhunt, Adaptive Security, Arsen, Pistachio, Proofpoint, and Brightside AI, pricing is negotiated based on seat count, contract length, and which modules you need.

The Bottom Line

The SAT market split into two distinct groups over the last 18 months: platforms that treat vishing as a first-class simulation capability, and platforms that treat it as a roadmap item or a demo feature. That split maps closely onto which platforms were built or rebuilt with AI-era attacks in mind versus those built for the compliance training era.

For CISOs evaluating platforms in 2026, the most useful question to ask any vendor is simple: can your platform run a live, outbound, AI-powered vishing call that my admin can set up without calling your sales team? The answer tells you a lot about where the platform has actually invested.