F5, the global leader in delivering and securing every app and API, today announced enhancements to F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense, introducing new device intelligence capabilities and specialized agentic AI protections. Announced in Seattle, these capabilities bring persistent device context and continuous risk decisioning to application security, giving organizations real-time agent management designed to welcome trusted digital interaction while helping stop automated fraud and abuse.
These updates arrive as AI agents emerge as a key channel for interacting with websites, mobile applications, and customer portals. Unlike basic web crawlers or simple automated scripts, AI agents perform autonomous, multi-step actions on behalf of consumers—such as executing transactions in agent-based commerce, booking travel, and conducting banking operations. Because these agents interact directly with APIs at machine speed, first-generation bot management tools built around rigid bot or not rules are quickly overwhelmed. Static, request-level controls can no longer distinguish between authorized AI driving legitimate business and malicious bots attempting fraud, while blunt IP blocking or CAPTCHAs risk shutting down revenue-generating AI channels.
F5 addresses this challenge by delivering advanced bot defense as a core component of its web application and API protection offerings, integrated with the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform. Rather than relying on single-request inspection, F5 correlates behavioral, device, and client-integrity telemetry across interactions. This multi-signal approach establishes trust at critical login, web, and API connections without disrupting legitimate users or authorized AI agents.
"Agentic AI is breaking the old security model, where automated traffic was treated as inherently malicious," said Kunal Anand, Chief Product Officer at F5. "The answer is not to block AI. It is to understand which agents and devices can be trusted, what they are trying to do, and how risk changes across every interaction. By bringing persistent device intelligence and real-time risk decisioning into the active data path, F5 helps organizations stop fraud and account abuse without closing the door on legitimate users, trusted AI agents, or new digital business models."
Key enhancements to F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense include persistent device identification that identifies and tracks devices across multiple sessions and accounts, exposing hidden abuse patterns such as multi-account access, credential stuffing, and account takeover.
Real-time device risk scoring evaluates client integrity signals in real time to detect suspicious environments including emulators, device spoofing, and tampering. Risk-based workflow enforcement enables customers to set dynamic policy actions including allow, step-up challenge, rate-limit, or block intended to help reduce disruptive CAPTCHA friction and false positives for real users and approved automation.
Agent-aware policy framework classifies and manages traffic from humans, trusted AI agents, and malicious bots within a single policy framework on the F5 ADSP, helping organizations adopt AI-driven workflows with confidence.
New agentic AI protections for F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense are available today. The device intelligence functionality is currently expected to reach limited availability for F5 Distributed Cloud customers in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2026, with broader availability expected thereafter over the coming months.
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 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.
