Q&A with Lisa Citron: What does the CalypsoAI acquisition mean for F5 partners?

F5 is a channel-led business, and we want to be crystal clear: the acquisition of CalypsoAI benefits our partners as much as it does our customers. We’re genuinely excited because CalypsoAI adds immediately useful, enterprise-grade AI security capabilities that give our channel partners high-value solutions to sell, services to build, and differentiated offerings to win new business.

By pairing model-agnostic runtime protections and adversarial testing with F5’s proven application and API security reach, partners gain a compelling entry point into CISO and SecOps conversations, while expanding their service portfolios around helping customers secure data, combat adversarial threats, and govern responsible AI.

To dig into what this means for partners, customers, and our go-to-market strategy, I sat down with Lisa Citron, VP, Global Partner Ecosystem at F5.

Citron: This acquisition will create exciting new opportunities for F5’s channel partners as demand for AI security continues to surge. With more customers scaling AI workflows, the need for robust security has never been greater. F5’s acquisition of CalypsoAI places our partners at the forefront of this opportunity, empowering them to help enterprises stay ahead of emerging threats while capitalizing on the increasing market demand for AI security.

With CalypsoAI integrated into F5’s Application Delivery and Security Platform, partners can deliver cutting-edge solutions to protect against emerging adversarial AI threats like jailbreak attacks and prompt injection, secure sensitive data, and help customers meet growing regulatory requirements like the EU AI Act and General Data Protection Regulation. Beyond that, this gives partners the ability to create unique programs and services that help customers scale AI securely and confidently. This isn’t just about responding to growing risks—it’s a chance for F5’s partners to take the lead in shaping the future of the rapidly expanding AI security market.

Citron: Absolutely. This acquisition equips F5’s partners with powerful, new capabilities to tackle customers’ most urgent cybersecurity needs, particularly in the rapidly evolving AI space. As organizations embrace AI, they’re encountering critical challenges, from the explosion of APIs to the risks that arise from models accessing vulnerable data stores. These dynamic and expanding attack surfaces require advanced security solutions, and this is where the integration of CalypsoAI makes a difference.

With CalypsoAI, partners can create tailored solutions to address critical AI risks. For example, they can deploy guardrails that ensure models behave responsibly by preventing sensitive data disclosures or unwanted outputs. Imagine a cosmetics company that uses AI chatbots. They can set guardrails so their bots never offer medical advice. Or a financial services company can make sure AI tools avoid offering regulated financial advice. The key point here is just because a model has access to certain data doesn’t mean it should use it, and guardrails help ensure that.

With CalypsoAI, partners can also stay ahead of external threats like prompt injection and jailbreak attacks by offering proactive risk assessment services. Using adversarial attack simulation backed by the preeminent AI threat library, generating over 10,000 attack prompts per month, partners can deliver detailed insights for identifying vulnerabilities in real time.

Furthermore, partners can help customers meet compliance requirements, such as the EU AI Act and GDPR, by providing unified governance solutions. Capabilities like dashboards, risk scoring, and audit trails that reveal chain-of-thought help to expose the so-called AI black box and streamline the path to AI compliance through operational transparency. With features like Agentic Fingerprints and Outcome Analysis, CalypsoAI is at the forefront of explainability, helping customers understand why an AI system made a particular decision or took a particular action.

Operational resilience is another area where partners can step in. Through continuous vulnerability assessments, scheduled retesting, and prioritized remediation, they can help customers avoid issues such as crashes or latency. By integrating threat intelligence findings into workflows, partners can deliver comprehensive solutions to secure operations and enhance overall performance.

Ultimately, this acquisition empowers F5’s partners to lead in the AI security market, while creating innovative programs that drive differentiation, growth, and long-term success.

Citron: This acquisition puts F5 in a stronger position to help channel partners and customers stay ahead of the fast-changing AI threat landscape. It gives us a clear competitive edge in two key ways.

First, it expands F5’s ability to deliver a proactive, AI-focused security platform that works seamlessly across hybrid and multicloud environments. Scaling AI can create new risks, but F5 now has the tools to secure AI systems from pilot to production, no matter where they’re deployed.

Second, it sets us apart from traditional network-centric security vendors and single-point solutions. Most of those tools focus on the “who” and “where” of network traffic, but AI threats are different—they live in the fine details of the application layer: the tokens, prompts, and data models interact with. That’s exactly where F5 excels. With decades of experience securing the application layer, F5 is uniquely positioned to address threats where they actually occur. Add this acquisition, and we’re delivering a unified, model-agnostic security solution that evolves as threats and AI models themselves change.

This means we’re helping enterprises close critical gaps by securing dataflows, blocking harmful outputs, and tackling both external attacks and internal misuse—all with a single platform. For partners and customers alike, it’s a monumental step forward in addressing today’s most pressing security challenges.

Citron: It’s still a bit early to pin down the exact integration timeline, but work will begin shortly after the deal closes later this quarter. What’s clear is that CalypsoAI’s model-agnostic AI security capabilities are an excellent fit to enhance F5’s existing Application Delivery and Security Platform.

We’re committed to keeping our partners fully informed throughout the integration process so they’re equipped to deliver scalable, effective AI security solutions for their customers. And the exciting part is that CalypsoAI’s technology has already proven its value. Customers have seen immediate benefits, whether it’s conducting vulnerability testing for models in pilot or production, or quickly implementing guardrails based on identified risks.

We fully expect this same rapid time-to-value for our partners as they begin selling and deploying the integrated solution. CalypsoAI’s security guardrails, combined with F5’s application-layer expertise, mean faster, smarter protection for enterprises scaling their AI projects—delivering real-world results in short order.

Citron: F5 is a channel-led business, so empowering our partners is always a top priority. We’re already working closely with them to address today’s toughest AI security challenges, and the acquisition of CalypsoAI takes this to the next level. The AI security market is still in its early stages, but this move solidifies F5 as a leader in helping enterprises navigate emerging threats and scale AI securely.

Once the deal closes and we have partner SKUs available, we’ll launch a comprehensive enablement track within Partner Central, our partner portal. This will give our partners the tools, training, and resources they need to confidently sell and support CalypsoAI’s capabilities as it integrates into F5 ADSP. With these resources, our partners can offer cutting-edge solutions to secure sensitive data, protect against evolving threats like prompt injection and jailbreak attacks, and ensure regulatory compliance.

The opportunities here are big: partners will have everything they need to help their customers secure data, apps, APIs, and now AI models and agents across any environment, whether you are still developing your application or its in production. This isn’t just about filling a gap—it’s about giving our partners a leadership position in the fast-growing AI security market.