Application Delivery Controller Opportunities in the Age of AI
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Enterprises are moving AI workloads on premises to protect sensitive data, meet sovereignty requirements, or escape cloud egress costs, which means the application delivery layer just became a strategic decision. We believe the new Gartner® research explains why, predicting that by 2029, over 30% of large enterprises and service providers will upgrade their ADC hardware to address data and AI sovereignty requirements.
The bigger question which we feel the report answers: how do you secure AI you can't fully see? Inference endpoints, agentic AI, and LLM interactions face threats that traditional controls weren't built for, including prompt injection, data poisoning, and agent impersonation.
When AI traffic and AI threats arrive through the same front door, application delivery and security can no longer live on separate platforms. Protecting AI workloads demands both in one.
Our three takeaways from the report
Sovereignty is a new driver: AI workloads are moving on-premises, pushing hardware ADC spending up 14% in 2026
The ADC is becoming an AI security control point from firewalling, guardrails, and bot defense at the inference endpoints where compliance is decided
New dedicated AI teams reporting to the CEO now own infrastructure decisions, and they measure technologies on token throughput, time to first token, and latency
Disclaimer: Gartner, Application Delivery Controller Opportunities in the Age of AI, 11 June 2026, Christian Canales, Marissa Schmidt. Gartner is a trademark of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates.