Cisco AI Defense vs Prisma AIRS

Cisco AI Defense is Cisco's security product for enterprise AI applications, models and agents. Cisco unveiled it on January 15, 2025 and said it would be available that March. It is built on Robust Intelligence, the AI security startup Cisco announced it would acquire on August 26, 2024 and finished acquiring on September 24, 2024; Dark Reading called Robust Intelligence the core component of AI Defense. The product is sold by Cisco Systems, Inc., which was incorporated in 1984 and is based in San Jose; this profile lists Cisco's founding year and headquarters, as the directory does for other big-company products. Cisco's May 2026 data sheet splits the product into four parts. AI Cloud Visibility discovers AI models, applications, connected data sources, MCP servers and agents, including assets in Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex and Azure AI Foundry. AI Supply Chain Risk Management scans model files, repositories and MCP servers and tools, and gives each asset a risk score. AI Model and Application Validation runs algorithmic red teaming with more than 200 attack techniques and threat subcategories. AI Runtime Protection applies safety, security and privacy guardrails, enforces MCP policies at runtime and protects agent behavior. Runtime checks can run at the network level through Cisco Multicloud Defense, through a gateway, or through an Inspection API. Hybrid deployments (AWS EKS, Azure AKS, GCP and on-premises AI PODs on OpenShift) keep sensitive data in the customer's environment. A separate AI Access module, for employee use of third-party AI apps, comes through Cisco Secure Access and needs its Advantage package. **Agent and MCP security** In February 2026 Cisco added an AI bill of materials, an MCP Catalog, multi-turn red teaming of models and agents, real-time agentic guardrails and an integration with NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails; the release gave no availability dates. In March 2026 it launched AI Defense: Explorer Edition, a self-service red-teaming tool Cisco offers at no upfront cost, and announced an Agent Runtime SDK for Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, Google Vertex Agent Builder, Azure AI Foundry and LangChain, plus DefenseClaw, an open-source agent security framework. **Frameworks** Cisco says AI Defense has mapped to NIST, OWASP and MITRE frameworks since launch. Its data sheet names the NIST AI RMF, MITRE ATLAS and the OWASP Top 10 for LLMs, and red-team reports also map to Cisco's own Integrated AI Security and Safety Framework. We found no documented support for the EU AI Act or ISO 42001. **Who it's for** Large enterprises that already use Cisco security products (Secure Access, Multicloud Defense, Splunk) and want AI discovery, red teaming and runtime guardrails from one vendor. Cisco doesn't publish prices.

Prisma AIRS is Palo Alto Networks' platform for securing AI applications, agents, models and data. Palo Alto Networks launched it on April 28, 2025, the same day it announced its intent to acquire Protect AI, a Seattle AI security company, and completed that acquisition on July 22, 2025. Prisma AIRS 2.0, released October 28, 2025, "completes the native integration" of Protect AI, and Protect AI's chief executive, Ian Swanson, joined as VP, Product, Prisma AIRS. The protectai.com site now redirects to the Prisma AIRS page, and the README of Protect AI's open-source LLM Guard library says the project has been archived. Palo Alto Networks was incorporated in 2005 and is based in Santa Clara; this profile lists the company's founding year and headquarters, as the directory does for other big-company products. Palo Alto's fiscal 2026 annual report lists six parts: AI Gateway, Agent Security, AI Red Teaming, AI Runtime Security, AI Model Security (labeled AI Supply Chain Security on the current product page) and AI Posture Management. AI Runtime Security comes in two forms. API Intercept is called from application code through a REST API to scan prompts and model responses. Network Intercept inspects cloud network traffic inline and is managed from Strata Cloud Manager or Panorama. The platform supports AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, private clouds and on-premises infrastructure. AI Red Teaming tests agentic and non-agentic systems with a library of more than 500 attack vectors across 50+ techniques and produces a risk score. AI Model Security scans models for tampering, malicious code, data poisoning, architectural backdoors and unsafe serialization formats. **Agent security** The product page now adds Agent Identity Security and Agentic Endpoint Security. Palo Alto completed its acquisition of Koi, which adds agentic endpoint security, in April 2026. On May 29, 2026 it completed its acquisition of Portkey, whose gateway becomes the core AI Gateway for Prisma AIRS: it routes, monitors and secures traffic between agents and models. **Frameworks** Palo Alto maps AI Red Teaming attacks to the OWASP Top 10 for LLMs, MITRE ATLAS and what it calls the NIST Risk Management Framework. We found no documented support for the EU AI Act or ISO 42001. **Who it's for** Enterprises, especially existing Palo Alto Networks customers on Strata Cloud Manager, that want model scanning, red teaming and runtime protection funded from the same credit pool as their software firewalls.