Enterprise leaders are under intense pressure to accelerate AI adoption. Across industries, organizations are modernizing infrastructure, automating workflows, and empowering employees with AI-driven tools to improve productivity and innovation.
But as AI initiatives move from pilot to production, many enterprises are realizing something much more fundamental: AI success depends not just on models and applications, but on the security and governance of the data that fuels them.
AI systems are only as trustworthy as the data they ingest and the controls that surround them. Sensitive intellectual property, regulated information, and unstructured data spread across cloud repositories, file shares, SaaS platforms, and endpoints are now being pulled into AI workflows at unprecedented speed. Without clear visibility into that data—and without ongoing assurance that AI systems behave as intended—organizations risk exposure, compliance gaps, and adversarial attacks.
That’s why F5 and Forcepoint are partnering to deliver a more holistic approach to enterprise AI security.
“Together, F5 and Forcepoint help organizations move from data reality to runtime trust, ensuring that AI systems are grounded in trusted data while continuously protected as they operate in production.”
By combining Forcepoint’s leadership in data discovery and classification with F5’s expertise in AI application protection, guardrails, and adversarial testing, the two companies are helping organizations secure AI across its full lifecycle, from foundational data understanding to runtime protection and continuous assurance.
Establishing data layer truth
That lifecycle begins with the data layer and Forcepoint.
Based in Austin, Texas, and founded in 1994, Forcepoint is a long-standing multinational cybersecurity company with a global presence and thousands of employees worldwide.
For decades, it has focused on protecting sensitive data and intellectual property across cloud, web, and endpoint environments. Today, it is widely recognized as a top-tier data security and governance provider with deep expertise in data security posture management (DSPM), data loss prevention (DLP), and enterprise data protection.
Forcepoint’s capabilities center on helping organizations discover, classify, and govern data wherever it resides, from on-premises file shares and data lakes to SaaS platforms such as SharePoint, OneDrive, and other cloud repositories. Such visibility is foundational. Enterprises cannot protect what they cannot see, and they cannot confidently deploy AI if they do not understand what sensitive, regulated, or proprietary data may be exposed to it.
The company’s standing in the market reflects that expertise. Forcepoint has been recognized in leading analyst reports, including as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape for DLP and as a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave for data security platforms, both in 2025.
Privately held and backed by Francisco Partners, a technology-focused private equity firm, Forcepoint serves customers in more than 150 countries—including 81 of the Fortune 100—helping some of the world’s largest organizations manage data risk at scale.
Governing data is essential. Securing how AI uses that data is equally critical.
Securing AI systems at runtime
As AI models and applications become central to business operations, powering copilots, research tools, automated workflows, and emerging agentic systems, they introduce a new category of security challenges.
These systems do not simply store data. They interpret it, synthesize it, and generate outputs that influence decisions across finance, healthcare, manufacturing, government, and many other sectors. As a result, enterprises must ensure not only that the right data is used, but also that AI systems behave safely and predictably once deployed.
This is where F5’s expertise comes to bear.
F5 focuses on securing AI systems at runtime. Through capabilities such as AI guardrails, red teaming, and application-layer protections, F5 enables organizations to test, monitor, and enforce policies across AI applications, APIs, models, and agents. These controls help detect prompt abuse, prevent data exfiltration, and identify vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
Rather than relying solely on perimeter defenses or static policies, F5 provides runtime protection and telemetry that helps security teams validate AI behavior continuously. This ensures that AI systems remain resilient, trustworthy, and aligned with enterprise governance requirements as they evolve in production environments.
“A match made in heaven”
When you combine these two capabilities—Forcepoint’s deep visibility into enterprise data and F5’s protection of AI systems at runtime—the result is what at least one executive of the participating companies describes as “a match made in heaven.”
The reason is straightforward.
AI security must span a continuous lifecycle. It begins with discovering and classifying sensitive data. It continues with determining which AI use cases matter most and which data should be exposed to those systems. And it extends into runtime enforcement, monitoring, and testing once AI applications are live.
Forcepoint establishes data layer truth by helping organizations understand what data exists, where it resides, and how sensitive it is.
F5 then provides runtime enforcement and assurance, protecting the AI systems that interact with that data through monitoring, adversarial testing, and policy enforcement.
Together, the companies help organizations move from data reality to runtime trust, ensuring that AI systems are grounded in trusted data while continuously protected as they operate in production.
A pragmatic path to secure AI adoption
Significantly, this challenge is not confined to any single industry. Whether in financial services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, or government, organizations face similar questions as they operationalize AI:
- What data should be accessible to AI systems?
- Which AI use cases introduce the greatest risk?
- How can security policies be enforced once AI applications are deployed?
- How can AI systems be continuously evaluated and validated?
The answers require coordination between data security and application security, two domains that have historically been managed separately.
The F5-Forcepoint partnership brings those domains together.
In its initial phase, the collaboration will focus on coordinated go-to-market engagement and customer solutions that allow organizations to apply F5 and Forcepoint capabilities together immediately. This pragmatic approach enables enterprises to address AI security challenges today without requiring deep product integration from the outset.
As customer use cases evolve, the partnership will continue to expand and deepen integration between the companies’ technologies, as shaped by real-world demand and emerging AI security requirements.
Building the foundation for trusted AI
AI is advancing at extraordinary speed. But speed without governance creates risk, and innovation without safeguards can expose organizations to unintended consequences.
Enterprises need a security strategy that addresses AI holistically—from the data that powers models to the runtime behavior of the applications that deploy them.
By combining Forcepoint’s leadership in data discovery and governance with F5’s expertise in application security, runtime protection, and adversarial testing, the two companies are helping organizations establish a clear path forward.
Secure the data. Protect the AI systems. Continuously validate behavior.
When organizations connect data layer truth with runtime assurance, they gain something far more valuable than AI experimentation.
They gain the confidence to operationalize AI securely, and to scale it responsibly across the enterprise.
For more information, please read the press release announcing the partnership and the accompanying Forcepoint blog. For inquiries related to the solution, please contact forcepointalliance@f5.com.
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