Prisma AIRS vs Protect AI

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redirects to the Prisma AIRS page, and the README of Protect AI's open-source LLM Guard library says the project has been archived.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.

Protect AI was a Seattle AI security company founded in 2022 by Ian Swanson (CEO), Daryan Dehghanpisheh and Badar Ahmed, who had previously worked at AWS, Oracle and DataScience.com. It raised $108.5 million: a $13.5 million seed round co-led by Acrew Capital and Boldstart Ventures (December 2022), a $35 million Series A led by Evolution Equity Partners (July 2023) and a $60 million Series B led by Evolution Equity Partners (August 2024), with Salesforce Ventures and Samsung among the investors. GeekWire reported 75 employees and offices in Seattle, Berlin and Bangalore in August 2024. Protect AI bought huntr, Rebuff, Laiyer AI and SydeLabs. Palo Alto Networks announced its intent to acquire Protect AI on April 28, 2025, the same day it launched Prisma AIRS, and completed the deal on July 22, 2025. It did not disclose the price; SiliconANGLE cited GeekWire sources putting it above $500 million. Ian Swanson joined Palo Alto as VP, Product, Prisma AIRS, and Prisma AIRS 2.0 (October 28, 2025) "completes the native integration" of Protect AI. Protect AI is no longer sold separately: protectai.com now redirects to the Prisma AIRS page, although some old blog posts are still online. Buyers should evaluate Prisma AIRS. **What it sold** Protect AI sold AI security, not governance. Guardian, built on its open-source ModelScan tool, scanned machine learning models for unsafe or malicious code and enforced policies on which models could be used. In October 2024 Hugging Face added the Guardian scanner to its Hub, and by April 2025 Protect AI had scanned 4.47 million model versions there. Recon tested AI applications before deployment with a library of 450 simulated attacks, and Layer filtered malicious prompts in production. Its earlier AI Radar product built a machine learning bill of materials. The huntr community, with more than 15,000 members in August 2024, reported AI and ML vulnerabilities. Palo Alto says the deal brought model scanning, posture management, AI red teaming, runtime protection and AI agent security to Prisma AIRS, but it doesn't map each Protect AI product to a Prisma AIRS module. **Open source** LLM Guard, Protect AI's open-source library for scanning prompts and responses, is archived: its README says the project and its Hugging Face models are no longer developed or maintained. **Frameworks** The Protect AI pages still online don't document a mapping to an AI framework, so this profile lists none. Prisma AIRS maps its AI Red Teaming attacks to the OWASP Top 10 for LLMs, MITRE ATLAS and NIST.