F5, the global leader in delivering and securing every app and API, has introduced the F5 AI Security Platform to give CISOs continuous visibility, governance, and protection across enterprise AI applications, models, agents, and the APIs connecting them. F5 also announced the acquisition of SurePath AI, a pioneer in network-based AI discovery, intent classification, and shadow AI detection, as a key component in the launch of the new platform. Through a continuous, adaptive loop approach to governing, discovering, testing, and protecting enterprise AI workloads, the platform extends F5's Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) strategy to enterprise AI across on-premises, air-gapped, private cloud, hybrid, and public cloud environments.
F5 launches AI Security Platform with continuous visibility, governance, and protection for enterprise AI.
Acquisition of SurePath AI enables network-based AI discovery and shadow AI detection.
Platform addresses AI risks including prompt injection, data leakage, and excessive agent autonomy.
Features include AI governance, discovery, security testing, runtime protection, and observability.
Independent testing shows up to 98.2% security efficacy for runtime protection.
F5's 2026 SOAS Report finds 88% of organizations face AI-related operational or security challenges.
AI systems now operate with more access, autonomy, and speed than even the most over-privileged human users, creating new risks for security teams and business leaders. A prompt injection, data leak, or agent acting beyond its authorized scope can expose sensitive information, disrupt operations, and erode customer trust. At the same time, employees are adopting unauthorized tools and unsanctioned integrations, creating shadow AI footprints that most security teams cannot see, let alone govern. According to F5's 2026 State of Application Strategy (SOAS) Report, 88% of organizations report at least one AI-related operational or security challenge, underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive AI security solutions.
"Most AI security today is a wrapper around a chatbot. That is not security," said Kunal Anand, Chief Product Officer, F5. "Enterprises run AI inside regulated networks, behind APIs, and across agents that authenticate and act on their own. The F5 AI Security Platform gives CISOs and security leaders what they have been missing: continuous control over every model, agent, and API, wherever the AI runs, delivered on the same F5 platform that has secured and delivered enterprise applications for three decades."
The addition of SurePath AI powers the F5 AI Security Platform's approach to network-based AI discovery, identifying AI usage across the enterprise, including shadow AI, without requiring direct application integrations. With frictionless deployment through network redirects and out-of-band analysis, SurePath AI gives security teams a unified visibility layer that detects unauthorized AI activity, classifies the intent behind each workflow, and continuously traces agent tool calls and MCP server connections. This visibility feeds directly into the F5 AI Security Platform, informing the risks to be tested by F5 AI Red Team and mitigated by F5 AI Guardrails.
The F5 AI Security Platform addresses AI risk through four integrated pillars and an overarching observability layer that creates a persistent security lifecycle rather than a one-time compliance exercise. AI Governance enables organizations to translate specific risk tolerances, privacy requirements, and regulatory obligations into enforceable boundaries for AI prompts, outputs, tool use, and data access. AI Discovery provides continuous visibility into every AI application, agent, and MCP tool call running across the enterprise, whether sanctioned or not, with activity classified by use case and intent. AI Security Testing stress-tests AI systems against more than 140,000 attack patterns from the deepest AI threat database in the industry before those systems reach production, converting findings directly into enforceable defenses. AI Runtime Protection defines guardrails in plain language and deploys them at the point of interaction, where the platform has demonstrated up to 98.2% security efficacy in independent testing, blocking prompt injection, excessive agent autonomy, and data leakage. AI Observability provides a complete audit trail across every AI interaction on the platform, maintaining the accountability and traceability that regulated industries require.
With this new solution, F5 uniquely combines AI security capabilities with flexible deployment options, enabling enterprises to operate across on-premises, air-gapped, private cloud, hybrid, and public cloud deployments. This is especially valuable to CISOs in highly regulated industries with exacting data residency and sovereignty requirements. SurePath AI's lightweight network-based deployment model reinforces this flexibility, requiring no changes to existing application architectures. Heightened visibility is increasingly critical as AI agents proliferate. F5's 2026 SOAS Report states 98% of organizations are preparing for agentic AI, but the speed of agent adoption is outpacing the controls designed to manage it. When agents can authenticate, call tools, access data, and take actions autonomously, the blast radius of a single misconfiguration or exploit grows exponentially.
About F5
F5, Inc. is the global leader that delivers and secures every app. Backed by three decades of expertise, F5 has built the industry's premier platform—F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP)—to deliver and secure every app, every API, anywhere: on-premises, in the cloud, at the edge, and across hybrid, multicloud environments. F5 is committed to innovating and partnering with the world's largest and most advanced organizations to deliver fast, available, and secure digital experiences. Together, we help each other thrive and bring a better digital world to life.
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