F5 unveils AI assistant to enhance app security oversight

F5 has introduced a new AI-powered assistant for its Distributed Cloud Services to assist SecOps and NetOps teams in managing and securing applications over complex and hybrid networks.

The AI assistant is designed to enhance the monitoring and security oversight of applications, particularly in light of the findings from F5's 2024 State of Application Strategy report, which indicated that 88% of organisations now utilise a hybrid model for app and API management. This percentage is accompanied by an increase in the complexity of deployment models, with more than 38% of organisations now operating across six different models, a significant rise from 2023.

Pranav Dharwadkar, Vice President of Product Management at F5, stated, "There have never been more apps and APIs to maintain, nor a wider surface area of deployment environments to monitor. More than ever, SecOps and NetOps teams require the right tools to ensure they are on top of threats to their network. Our AI assistant has been built around their needs."

The AI assistant provides a comprehensive range of features, including customisable suggested queries for assessing site health and multi-cloud deployments, advanced summaries of security events ranked by attack style and risk, and accelerated response capabilities for zero-day threats. It offers actionable recommendations to swiftly address emerging threats and automates various security and networking tasks to enhance operational efficiency, freeing up teams to focus on strategic initiatives.

According to Pranav Dharwadkar, "The AI assistant can be where human teams cannot, it draws on insight and training data from a wide spectrum of organisations facing the same threats, and it is fully customisable, allowing engineers to draw exactly the reporting and insight they want from it, as well as prompting them with suggested actions."

The AI assistant is integrated with the F5 AI Data Fabric and features a natural language interface, making it accessible directly from the F5 Distributed Cloud Services console for existing users.

Dharwadkar further elaborated, "We recognise how stretched network and security teams currently are and the AI assistant will serve as an intelligent partner for them. This can help to reduce response times from days to minutes, ensuring that critical assets are protected, and breaches are swiftly addressed."

F5's initiative reflects its commitment to integrating AI into its application security and delivery solutions. "This is just one part of our commitment to integrate AI with our application security and delivery solutions, helping customers wherever they are in their AI journey. We firmly believe that network and security teams will benefit by making AI a consistent part of their workflow, enabling them to deploy resources efficiently and respond rapidly to the most important threats," Dharwadkar concluded.