Security
Palo Alto Networks has announced plans to acquire Portkey, a specialist in AI gateway technology, as it looks to address rising security risks tied to autonomous AI agents in enterprises.
The deal is aimed at integrating Portkey’s capabilities into Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma AIRS platform, creating a centralized control layer to monitor, manage, and secure AI-driven interactions across organizations.
Portkey’s technology acts as an “AI gateway,” enabling enterprises to oversee how AI agents operate, communicate, and access data. The platform already processes trillions of tokens each month and is designed to support low-latency, agent-to-agent communication at scale.
The acquisition comes as enterprises move beyond AI copilots to deploying autonomous agents capable of making decisions and executing workflows across systems. This shift, Palo Alto Networks said, is creating a new and largely unmanaged attack surface.
Lee Klarich, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Palo Alto Networks, said autonomous agents effectively function as highly privileged insiders, requiring new layers of visibility and governance. Integrating Portkey will allow organizations to track and secure all agentic traffic while enforcing policies in real time.
Once integrated, Portkey will serve as the AI Gateway for Prisma AIRS, providing a unified architecture to secure AI workloads without slowing down development. The platform is designed to enforce identity-based controls, inspect AI interactions, and prevent threats at runtime.
Beyond security, the combined offering will focus on reliability and scalability. Features include high-availability routing, automated failover, and detailed telemetry for monitoring AI activity. It also introduces centralized governance capabilities, allowing enterprises to manage AI models, agents, and tools across environments from a single interface.
Rohit Agarwal, CEO and co-founder of Portkey, said the partnership aims to balance developer flexibility with enterprise-grade security, enabling organizations to deploy AI agents confidently while maintaining control over data and operations.
The move reflects a broader industry shift toward securing the “agentic” enterprise, where AI systems operate with increasing autonomy. As organizations scale AI deployments, vendors are racing to build infrastructure that can govern these systems while supporting rapid innovation.
The deal is aimed at integrating Portkey’s capabilities into Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma AIRS platform, creating a centralized control layer to monitor, manage, and secure AI-driven interactions across organizations.
Portkey’s technology acts as an “AI gateway,” enabling enterprises to oversee how AI agents operate, communicate, and access data. The platform already processes trillions of tokens each month and is designed to support low-latency, agent-to-agent communication at scale.
The acquisition comes as enterprises move beyond AI copilots to deploying autonomous agents capable of making decisions and executing workflows across systems. This shift, Palo Alto Networks said, is creating a new and largely unmanaged attack surface.
Lee Klarich, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Palo Alto Networks, said autonomous agents effectively function as highly privileged insiders, requiring new layers of visibility and governance. Integrating Portkey will allow organizations to track and secure all agentic traffic while enforcing policies in real time.
Once integrated, Portkey will serve as the AI Gateway for Prisma AIRS, providing a unified architecture to secure AI workloads without slowing down development. The platform is designed to enforce identity-based controls, inspect AI interactions, and prevent threats at runtime.
Beyond security, the combined offering will focus on reliability and scalability. Features include high-availability routing, automated failover, and detailed telemetry for monitoring AI activity. It also introduces centralized governance capabilities, allowing enterprises to manage AI models, agents, and tools across environments from a single interface.
Rohit Agarwal, CEO and co-founder of Portkey, said the partnership aims to balance developer flexibility with enterprise-grade security, enabling organizations to deploy AI agents confidently while maintaining control over data and operations.
The move reflects a broader industry shift toward securing the “agentic” enterprise, where AI systems operate with increasing autonomy. As organizations scale AI deployments, vendors are racing to build infrastructure that can govern these systems while supporting rapid innovation.
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