Fortinet extends FortiGate firewalls into AI security and adds new FortiAIGate features
Network security company Fortinet Inc. today extended its FortiGate firewalls into artificial intelligence security with the launch of the FortiGuard Inline AI Security Service. The service’s guardrails come from FortiAIGate. Fortinet also offers FortiAIGate on its own as a gateway that sits between applications and AI models, and the company detailed new features for it […] The post Fortinet…
Fortinet, a network security company, has integrated artificial intelligence security capabilities into its FortiGate firewalls through the launch of the FortiGuard Inline AI Security Service. This service operates on Fortinet’s cloud, providing real-time inspection of prompts headed to large language models, agents, and Model Context Protocol tools. Sensitive data within these interactions is masked to ensure confidentiality.
Fortinet also offers FortiAIGate as a standalone gateway that sits between applications and AI models. This new feature enables organizations to host the service themselves using Kubernetes and Nvidia GPUs, either on-premises or in their own cloud. The architecture of FortiAIGate allows it to handle prompts and logs within the customer’s environment, ensuring data privacy and sovereignty.
Michael Xie, Fortinet’s founder, president, and CTO, emphasized the importance of AI security in keeping pace with the rapid adoption of AI across enterprises. He described FortiAIGate as the foundation of Fortinet’s broader AI security strategy. The company’s focus is on inspecting prompts, images, video, and code along with text, and the expanded data loss prevention engine can now identify 35 kinds of personal and confidential information.
Fortinet’s new features include the ability to cap what a team or individual spends, preventing requests once a cap is reached. Administrators can easily enable one of the gateway’s over 50 built-in compliance policies with a single click. Every prompt, output, and tool call is logged for auditors, and agents operating across the business appear in their own view, mapped against what each one connects to.
The acquisition of AI security startup Virtue AI Inc. in August has contributed technology to the guardrails of FortiAIGate. Will Townsend, chief analyst at LoneStar Advisory & Research, praised the quick integration for improving performance and guardrails, calling the approach "elegant." Anthony James, executive vice president of marketing at Fortinet, highlighted the growing concern among customers about employees standing up unsanctioned AI infrastructure, which could lead to data leakage.
Fortinet’s solution addresses this governance problem by providing real-time monitoring and control over AI activities within the organization.
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