AI momentum is building, and it’s transforming every industry. This is causing organizations to rethink their security strategies to account for the new challenges AI brings. While the topic of AI is very broad, enterprise security is being shaped by the mainstreaming of AI-powered agents, the centrality of the browser as a workspace (as this is where workers use AI), and the new urgency of quantum-safe encryption.
At its recent, virtual Ignite On Tour event, Palo Alto Networks unveiled a suite of innovations—Prisma Browser, Prisma AIRS 2.0, Cortex Cloud 2.0, and AgentiX—that point the way forward for organizations facing the pace and the unpredictability of tomorrow’s threats.
The platform approach addresses security complexity
During his Ignite keynote, Anand Oswal, executive vice president of network security, discussed how the challenge of security is a combination of sophisticated adversaries and the complexity created by hundreds of point products. “I’ve talked to companies with more than 400 different cybersecurity tools that they’re trying to deploy, configure, optimize, operate, and utilize. It’s just not possible. It’s too complicated, and you’re not going to have enough people who can be experts across all those tools,” Oswal told the Ignite audience.
This is consistent with my research. I recently talked to a CISO who told me that the current security model of deploying point products “has not worked, does not work and isn’t ever going to work.” Palo Alto’s solution is wrapped up in its unified platform capable of delivering not only resilience but also the agility to adapt seamlessly to any new threat or operational shift.
With the Strata Network Security Platform and newly AI-powered Strata Cloud Manager, Palo Alto enables enterprises to simplify operations through the unification of data and the application of its AI-driven intelligence.
“Our customers keep telling me that our platform gives them true agility,” Oswal said. “How it helps them adjust to business realities—whether it is a new threat, a new merger, or a new business trend. Adapting is seamless.”
Palo Alto has articulated the value of a security platform for several years. But now, given the speed at which AI is moving, the value shifts from cost consolidation to agility. With AI, most customers don’t know what their future operating environment will look like, and a platform approach lets them shift much more easily than trying to cobble together point products.
The browser revolution: Prisma Browser redefines security
Palo Alto’s next major push is represented by Prisma Browser, built atop hardened Chromium and integrated with SASE-native security services. In Oswal’s words: “The browser isn’t just a window to the Internet anymore; it has become the de facto workspace.” I’ve seen studies show that north of 80% of enterprise work is being done in a browser while over 90% report browser-based security incidents. This should highlight how real the risks of having consumer browser are.
Consumer browsers were never designed for enterprise defense. According to Oswal, a secure browser must deliver three things: protect all devices and all traffic—even that which can’t be decrypted; provide seamless user experience; and deliver “true, preemptive protection for the modern threat landscape.”
Prisma Browser achieves this with real-time scanning to the Document Object Model (DOM), instant visibility into genAI usage, centralized data classification and governance, and instant policy enforcement. It’s not just security add-on — it’s a redesign for cloud and AI-driven workspace.
Prisma AIRS 2.0: The future of agent and AI security
The rise of enterprise AI agents has been broad and swift. These tools are now used by all types of workers as they drive efficiency, speed, and also new threat vectors. Palo Alto’s Prisma AIRS 2.0 secures all layers of AI: applications, agents, models, and data. Oswal stated: “AI is transforming every enterprise, creating extraordinary opportunities and new risks. Prisma AIRS 2.0 bridges that gap, uniting deep model inspection, real-time agent defense, and continuous red teaming in a single platform.”
AIRS 2.0 includes new modules for continuous red teaming (autonomous adversarial testing), native model inspection for backdoors and data poisoning, and real-time agent behavior governance. By providing holistic visibility, assessment, and runtime protection, Palo Alto lets organizations “deploy AI bravely—with the security to keep it safe, secure, compliant, and resilient.”
The reality is that companies don’t know what workers are dropping into generative AI systems. Many employees may unknowingly put their companies at risk by asking AI tools to summarize sensitive information. Training can only go so far so a system like Prisma AIRS 2.0 can go a long way into protecting a company from malicious activity but also workers just trying to do their jobs better.
AgentiX: Autonomous agents and the next SOC
As enterprises race to automate using agentic AI, Cortex AgentiX emerges as big step forward for SecOps, an area that hasn’t seen much innovation for the past decade. It’s a secure platform for deploying, monitoring, and governing AI agents in the SOC. Built on billions of real-world playbook executions, AgentiX is engineered to counter adversaries who can “launch attacks up to 100x faster with AI.” By building its agentic workforce on its existing SecOps backbone and SOAR maturity, AgentiX ensures agents operate within a fully governed automation framework. This can differ from startups that may not have the level of data that Palo Alto has.
Quantum security: Ready for the next disruption
The final theme from Ignite was quantum readiness. As Oswal explained, “When quantum computers become viable, they will break the encryption we all rely on for modern digital communications. We need to be ready.” Palo Alto Networks already delivers quantum-ready firewalls and a three-step process for quantum-safe migrations: discover cryptographic assets, protect via post-quantum decryption, and accelerate upgrades with Cipher Translation technology.
There is currently a lot of debate as to when quantum is coming and there seems to be no consensus as to timing. The only thing people can agree on is the need to protect data so when quantum does arrive, data being generated today can still be protected.
Looking forward: Unification fuels resilience
What’s next for network security? In Oswal’s keynote, he answered it:
“To wrap up, we shared three innovations today—Prisma Browser, Prisma AIRS, and Quantum Security—all part of a single platform… With our comprehensive platform, security becomes simple and unified. Our Precision AI-powered intelligence and data from over 70,000 customers helps you prevent threats in real time, everywhere. And with the incredible agility that comes from a platform approach, you will always be ready for what’s next.”
Almost every part of the IT stack has been disrupted by AI. The network, processors, and storage all have been transformed to meet the demands of AI. Now that customers are moving from pilots to production it’s time to rethink security. Palo Alto Ignite did a good job of providing some vision as to what the post AI security will look like but more importantly, provided the tools to get there.