Just three months after acquiring AI security vendor Protect AI in July, Palo Alto Networks recently released its new Prisma AIRS 2.0 AI security platform, which now integrates
Protect AI’s capabilities.
Prisma AIRS 2.0 is built to provide enterprises with broad AI lifecycle protections for everything from AI apps to autonomous AI agents, data, and AI models, helping enterprises secure their AI use with top-level protection, regulatory compliance, and operational integrity.
Prisma AIRS 2.0 connects deep AI agent and model inspection in development with real-time agent defense at production runtime, while undergoing continuous validation, according to Palo Alto Networks.
Included in Prisma AIRS 2.0 are three enhanced security modules: AI Agent Security, which provides real-time, in-line defense against prompt injections, tool misuse, and malicious agent behaviors; AI Red Teaming, which addresses new, dynamic attack surfaces of generative AI applications by using an autonomous, continuous, and context-aware agentic approach to proactively find vulnerabilities in enterprise AI systems before they can be exploited; and AI Model Security, which performs a deep architectural analysis of AI models to find threats that traditional scanners cannot detect.
Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group, told ChannelE2E that he sees Prisma AIRS 2.0 as a useful product that arrives just as enterprises are looking for effective ways to ensure deep IT security as they broaden their AI use.
“While the focus on AI has largely been about speed, quality and security have suffered. Thus, a service focused on quality and security is extremely well-timed,” said Enderle. “I would argue that this is more than important – it is critical for the success of AI because speed is not any good if quality and security are degraded.”
“More companies should be focusing on quality and security, as many AI deployments are unreliable with potential exploits waiting to happen,” he added.
A ‘Major Opportunity for MSPs’: Analyst
Another analyst,
Shelly Kramer, founder and principal analyst with Kramer & Co., said she sees Palo Alto’s Prisma AIRS 2.0 as a major opportunity for MSP partners to capitalize on a critical market gap.
“The deployment of AI without a robust security foundation is a significant challenge today,” said Kramer. “The Prisma AIRS platform enables MSPs to offer comprehensive, differentiated AI security services across three key areas – securing AI agents and discovering ‘shadow AI,’ performing automated red teaming, and providing deep model inspection for compliance. This unified approach allows partners to position themselves as trusted advisors helping enterprises safely accelerate AI adoption, while managing everything efficiently from a single platform.”
For MSPs, this presents significant revenue-generating opportunities to expand in high-growth sectors like finance, healthcare, and government, where AI security concerns are most acute, she said. “The timing is ideal as regulatory scrutiny increases and enterprises urgently need expertise to deploy AI securely, making AI security capabilities a competitive differentiator for forward-thinking MSP partners.”
Other Announcements from Palo Alto Networks
In addition to its Prisma AIRS 2.0 news, the company also unveiled two other related product releases:
Cortex AngentiX and
Cortex Cloud 2.0.
The Cortex AgentiX platform allows enterprises to build, deploy, and govern their AI agent “workforces” securely, giving them broad control, tight integrations with other systems, and the safety of enterprise-grade guardrails, according to the company.
To support other enterprise tools, AgentiX includes more than 1,000 prebuilt integrations and native Model Context Protocol (MCP) support.
Cortex AgentiX allows organizations to deploy security agents including threat intelligence agents, email investigation agents, endpoint investigation agents, network security agents, cloud security agents, and IT agents to protect a wide range of requirements.
The Cortex Cloud 2.0 release brings together powerful cloud detection and response (CDR) capabilities with a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) to help enterprises further strengthen their cloud security strategies with increased automation, efficiencies, and protections.
Tackling Different Aspects of the Problem
Gonen Fink, senior vice president for Cortex products at Palo Alto Networks, told ChannelE2E that all three new product updates show how the company is re-envisioning security in the age of AI.
“Prisma AIRS, Cortex Cloud, and AgentiX each tackle different aspects of the problem, but they all work toward the same goal: helping customers and partners secure AI and utilize it across their end-to-end operations so that they can focus on their mission while effectively defending against modern AI-powered threats and unlocking massive productivity gains,” he said. “It is a big moment for us because we are allowing people to use AI freely and securely and helping them drastically scale human ingenuity to solve the hardest security challenges that exist today. That is where we see the industry heading, and we want our partners right there with us.”
The three product updates make it easier for partners to launch new managed offerings around AI security and automation, cut response times, and deliver more value overall, said Fink.
“For our channel partners, this is really about expanding what they can offer,” he said. “Altogether, it opens new revenue streams around managed AI security while helping partners deliver stronger, more efficient protection for their clients.”
