Fortinet targets network security platform convergence to address AI-era complexity

Fortinet targets network security platform convergence to address AI-era complexity In the rush to adopt AI, enterprise security architectures are diminishing, and the only appropriate response is a network security platform that incorporates networking and security into a single, consistently governed fabric. That’s the vision Anthony James (pictured), executive vice president of marketing at Fortinet, pitched at Black Hat 2026. James, who first joined the company in 2004, said the vision that Ken Xie established more than two decades ago, consolidating fragmented security tools into a unified network security platform, is more relevant now than ever. “If you look 20 years later after we started this whole idea of unifying threat management on a firewall, we’re now seeing that convergence of networking and security,” James said. “Platforms are becoming much more evolved, and CISOs are trying to cope with how do I make sure my infrastructure gives productivity to my end users, but also eliminates as much risk as possible.” James spoke with Krista Case at Black Hat USA during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how Fortinet Security Fabric differentiates from platformization, what the SASE Firewall vision means in practice and where enterprises are asking for the most help as AI moves from experimentation into production. (* Disclosure below.) Network security platform strategy converges SASE, NGFW and AI governance into one fabric Fortinet’s Security Fabric is built on a foundational principle that distinguishes it from what James termed bolted-on platform approaches. Every product Fortinet builds must integrate natively, share consistent data and simplify the operator’s experience from the beginning. The result is a single source of truth throughout the security stack instead of a collection of consoles with different data models that practitioners have to manually reconcile under pressure. “Anything we build to help a CISO or a practitioner solve a security challenge, we build it with those foundational elements in mind,” James said. “Data is consistent, the experience is consistent, and it simplifies the user’s experience at the end of the day.” The next step in that strategy is what Fortinet calls the SASE Firewall, a convergence of secure access service edge and next-generation firewall built on the same policy for both on-premises and cloud deployments. James said that cloud-first SASE vendors over-rotated, and the growth of sovereign AI and agentic workloads has confirmed what organizations still need in the network. As AI leaves experimentation behind and begins production, Fortinet is also building governance capabilities around internally deployed AI factories, controlling which agents and MCP servers are sanctioned, monitoring token usage and making sure machine-to-machine communications are legitimate. “Now what we’re seeing is customers want to know what people are doing with their AI infrastructure internally,” James said. “Are they standing up elements of AI that’s not sanctioned, like agents and MCP servers and downloading code to their desktop? That’s a big no-no, and that could be sending data outside to train other models. So we’ve developed a lot of tools, and we have products that are in market and some that are coming that we’ll be excited to announce later this year.” Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Black Hat USA: (* Disclosure: Fortinet sponsored this segment of theCUBE. 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