Fortinet expands FortiEndpoint with AI monitoring, data controls to tackle shadow AI risks

Fortinet expands FortiEndpoint with AI monitoring and data controls

Fortinet expands FortiEndpoint with AI monitoring and data controls Fortinet Inc. today expanded its FortiEndpoint platform with a set of features aimed at helping companies monitor employee use of artificial intelligence tools and stop sensitive data from leaking into them. The update adds AI visibility and controls, built-in data loss prevention and an AI assistant for security teams to the endpoint product, which Fortinet sells through a single agent, console and license. Fortinet first outlined the plan at its Accelerate 2026 conference, pitching FortiEndpoint as one product to replace the separate tools companies run for endpoint protection, remote access and data security. The product also ties into the wider Fortinet Security Fabric. A risk signal from one device can then feed access and policy decisions across Fortinet's other security and networking products. The first of three areas centers on tracking AI use. FortiEndpoint gives administrators a single view of the sanctioned and unsanctioned AI applications, agents and web tools running on company devices, along with who is using them. Security teams can allow, restrict, monitor or block those tools based on company policy, a way to rein in the shadow AI that spreads when employees adopt applications without approval. The second area targets data leakage. The data loss prevention now built into FortiEndpoint inspects information as it moves to AI applications, agents and web services, flagging material such as personally identifiable information, intellectual property and financial records before it leaves the device. The feature also shows users real-time prompts about acceptable use, which Fortinet says is meant to curb risky behavior without slowing work. The third piece is FortiAI-Assist, an assistant built into the platform. Analysts can use plain language to investigate events, pull up summaries, flag high-risk devices and troubleshoot problems and the tool offers policy recommendations and risk guidance. Those workflows sit alongside zero-trust controls that score a device's health and compliance continuously and adjust its access as its risk level changes. "Organizations need a simpler and more effective way to manage security as their environments become more complex and AI-enabled," Michael Xie, founder, president and chief technology officer at Fortinet, said in the announcement. He added that the platform pulls together security, secure access, data security, AI visibility and assisted operations through one agent, one console and one license. The additions are due in the third quarter. They continue a run of AI-focused releases from Fortinet, which expanded generative AI across seven products in late 2024 and in December brought its FortiGate-VM firewall to Nvidia's BlueField-3 chips for AI data centers.

Fortinet Expands FortiEndpoint with New Capabilities for the AI Era

Fortinet today announced new capabilities for its unified endpoint platform, FortiEndpoint, designed to help organizations securely adopt AI, protect sensitive data, and reduce risk. By bringing AI visibility and control, native data security, endpoint risk scoring, and FortiAI-assisted operations into FortiEndpoint, Fortinet enables security teams to better govern AI usage, reduce sensitive data exposure, enforce risk-aware access, and simplify security operations across distributed environments. "Organizations need a simpler and more effective way to manage security as their environments become more complex and AI-enabled. The Fortinet Security Fabric is designed to converge critical security and networking functions across the enterprise, helping customers reduce complexity, improve visibility, and strengthen protection. With FortiEndpoint, we are extending that strategy by consolidating security, secure access, data security, AI visibility, and assisted operations in a unified endpoint platform, delivered through one agent, one console, and one license." - Michael Xie, Founder, President, and Chief Technology Officer at Fortinet A Platform Approach to AI-Era Endpoint Security As agents and AI-enabled applications become embedded in everyday work, organizations need better visibility, stronger governance, and integrated protection to securely enable AI while reducing endpoint risk and protecting sensitive data. These needs are even more urgent as threat actors move faster and use increasingly sophisticated techniques to exploit gaps across users, devices, applications, and data. The pressure security teams are facing is compounded by fragmented tools across protection, detection and response, secure access, and data security, which can slow security teams and limit visibility. FortiEndpoint builds on the consolidation strategy previewed at Fortinet Accelerate 2026 by bringing AI visibility and governance, endpoint protection, detection and response, secure remote access, native data security, and FortiAI-assisted operations together through one agent, one console, and one license. Through integration with the Fortinet Security Fabric, endpoint telemetry and risk context can inform connected security controls, strengthening adaptive access, policy enforcement, and enterprise-wide visibility. These capabilities help define Fortinet's approach to endpoint security for the AI era, advanced through three key areas of innovation: Securing AI Use at the Endpoint FortiEndpoint provides centralized visibility and control over sanctioned and unsanctioned AI application and agent usage across endpoints, including installed AI apps, agents, and web-based tools. From a single view, organizations can identify agents and applications in use, monitor adoption, and understand user activity to help surface shadow AI, unmanaged applications, and unauthorized tool usage. With granular guardrail policies, security teams can allow, restrict, monitor, or block applications based on corporate security, compliance, and data security requirements. This supports responsible AI adoption while reducing the risk of unsanctioned tools, sensitive data exposure, and policy violations. Reducing AI-Driven Data Exposure and Insider Risk FortiEndpoint now natively supports DLP to help secure AI interactions and reduce insider risk by automatically inspecting sensitive data exchanged with AI applications, agents, and web services. Built-in user coaching provides real-time policy guidance to help users understand acceptable AI usage and reduce risky behaviors without impacting productivity. This helps prevent the leakage of sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, intellectual property, and financial information directly at the endpoint. By integrating DLP into FortiEndpoint, organizations can safely adopt AI while maintaining stronger data security and compliance controls without adding another point product or management layer. Unifying Endpoint Security, Access, Data Security and AI-Assisted Operations FortiAI-Assist is built into FortiEndpoint to simplify administration and accelerate day-to-day operations. Security teams can use natural language to investigate events, visualize findings, generate investigation summaries, identify high-risk devices, and troubleshoot issues. It also provides contextual insights, policy recommendations, and risk guidance to help analysts strengthen governance, prioritize threats, scale threat hunting, and improve efficiency through a unified management experience. These assisted workflows are complemented by adaptive zero-trust capabilities with dynamic risk and compliance scoring. By continuously assessing endpoint health, compliance status, and risk posture, FortiEndpoint helps organizations make access decisions based on real-time context, so access to AI applications and protected resources can be adjusted as risk changes. This helps organizations reduce exposure, enforce more consistent policy, and safely support AI-enabled work. Industry analysts are also recognizing the importance of this integrated approach as organizations look for practical ways to govern AI use without adding more tools and complexity. "Fortinet is addressing what many CISOs need now: visibility into AI usage, control over sanctioned and unsanctioned tools, protection against sensitive data leakage, and real-time coaching to help employees use AI responsibly," said Chris DePuy, Technology Analyst at 650 Group. "Delivering these capabilities through FortiEndpoint gives customers a practical way to manage AI risk with the same agent and license they already rely on for endpoint security."