Pre-Sales Solution Architect - AI

IDC MarketScape recognized F5 as a Leader in Web Application and API Protection Platforms 2026 Vendor Assessment. F5 ADSP | October 01, 2026 F5, Inc. has entered an era of frontier AI threats, and autonomous agentic attacks. Autonomous AI models can scan, discover, and exploit vulnerabilities across distributed environments in hours. In fact, the patch window has completely inverted, with exploits now occurring seven days before vulnerability disclosure. When exploits emerge before security teams are even aware of a vulnerability, let alone receiving a software patch, reactive defense and multi-week release cycles are no longer viable. Runtime protection can no longer be a secondary layer; it must now be the enterprise's primary line of defense. The mandate for security leaders is clear: with uncontrolled API sprawl, shadow AI workloads, data leakage risks, and requirements for crypto-agility they need to defend every app, API, and AI application and agent with a self-learning engine that enforces consistent policy across hybrid, multi-cloud, and air-gapped data planes. That's exactly what F5's web app and API protection (WAAP) solution is built to do. F5, Inc. is proud to share that F5 was named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide WAAP Platforms 2026 Vendor Assessment (US54130626, September 2026), the second time F5 has been recognized since IDC MarketScape began publishing this report in 2024. F5 has been recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketSpace Web Application and API Protection Platforms 2026 Vendor Assessment. What F5 delivers for your enterprise that point tools cannot. F5 is the only security provider that delivers an application delivery and security platform built to secure modern applications, APIs, and AI - from development through runtime, across any environment. Delivered as part of the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP), F5 WAAP converges web application firewall (WAF), API security, bot defense, and DDoS mitigation to eliminate security gaps and vendor sprawl wherever apps and APIs operate. In this year's assessment, IDC MarketScape noted F5's strengths including: * AI-powered WAF with a measurable efficacy gain: F5 WAAP balances a combination of signatures and analysis to increase detection accuracy and reduce false positives without the need for constant manual tuning. F5 customers reported that the addition of the neural network risk engine cut false positives and lifted detection accuracy measurably. The new engine further aids F5's efforts to detect zero days in a more timely manner, including the Ivanti EPM and SolarWinds Web Help Desk CVEs. * Breadth of AI security options: The F5 suite for AI includes F5 AI Red Team, F5 AI Guardrails, and F5 AI Remediate. F5 AI Red Team provides proactive testing of AI applications for vulnerabilities. F5 AI Guardrails provides the real-time inspection and monitoring needed to block threats targeting AI, such as prompt injection and data leakage. Importantly, F5 AI Remediate is an important addition to other AI security solutions (e.g., AI Red Team and AI Guardrails, as they allow organizations to close the loop on security events). * Bot and agent defense built on rich telemetry: F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense collects 120+ signals through tamper-resistant client-side instrumentation and now distinguishes humans, bots, and AI agents, gating action to verified agents via Web Bot Auth and a Skyfire KYA (Know Your Agent) partnership. * Air-gapped API security supports government and other sensitive customers: F5 API Security Local Edition deploys without external connectivity and enforces directly on F5 BIG-IP, which is important for security and privacy-aware agencies and organizations. Using F5 WAAP technologies to fight highly sophisticated attacks. Over the years, organizations across a wide range of industries have turned to F5 WAAP solutions to deliver consistent policy enforcement, streamline operations, and secure apps, APIs, and AI across dispersed hybrid multi-cloud environments. Today, 28% of F5's top 1,000 customers have adopted all three deployment modes - SaaS, software, and hardware/cloud - validating that a unified platform approach dramatically simplifies security operations at enterprise scale. For example, Prime Bank, which operates 146 branches and 153 ATMs across Bangladesh, has been using F5 WAAP technologies for the last decade including most recently AI-powered WAF, enabling the bank to fight the most sophisticated attacks. As Md Mahbubul Alam Rafel, Chief Information Security Officer at Prime Bank, put it: "You do not need a human to generate an attack anymore, so you must have solutions with AI capacity as well. You have to fight fire with fire. We are already taking advantage of AI-based security insights within our existing consumption of F5 ADSP." Likewise, F5 customer HDI Sigorta, among Turkey's top 10 insurance firms, uses F5 WAAP technologies to protect its hybrid application landscape, including more than 200 APIs. As Altuğ Şahin, Network and Cybersecurity Manager at HDI Sigorta, explains: "F5 helped us significantly reduce blind sports across the API landscape, improved our threat detection capabilities, and enabled us to respond faster and more confidently to emerging risks." With AI-driven threats now able to exploit vulnerabilities faster than security teams can patch them, WAFs in monitoring mode and reactive multi-week release cycles are insufficient. F5 gives organizations the accuracy and confidence to enforce active blocking across any environment - plus close the loop from proactive vulnerability discovery to runtime virtual patching. It's how F5, Inc. help organizations reduce risk and strengthen their security posture in the frontier AI era. F5, Inc. believe being named a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape for WAAP affirms its mission: protecting every app, API, and AI application and agent without compromise. Nirav Shah SVP, Product and Solution Marketing | F5 Nirav Shah is the Senior Vice President and Head of Products and Solution Marketing at F5, where he leads the strategic direction for Application Security and AI Security. Before joining F5, he spent eleven years at Fortinet in several leadership positions, most notably heading the AI-Powered SASE, SOC, and Secure Networking solutions. His extensive background also includes significant roles at Cisco Systems, where he spearheaded major initiatives for SD-WAN. With more than two decades of experience in the cybersecurity sector, he has an established record of launching market-defining products and building high-performance teams that align product development with sales and marketing for maximum impact. As a thought leader and USC alumnus, he is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a regular contributor to leading publications on the intersection of AI and cybersecurity, while remaining dedicated to mentoring emerging cybersecurity professionals. Featured Blog Posts

F5 positioned as market shaper in the Gartner Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application Security. F5 | Published 22 Sept 2026 COMPANY NEWS: To us, the recognition underscores F5's ability to secure AI across cloud, on-premises, and air-gapped environments at enterprise scale F5 - 22 September - (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in delivering and securing every app and API, today announced it has been positioned by Gartner(R) in the Market Shapers quadrant of the September 2026 Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application Security - one of only two vendors to be recognised in that position.1 According to Gartner, vendors evaluated in the Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application Security are assessed across two axes: potential for market disruption and potential to execute. "Enterprises are not running AI in a lab. They are running it inside regulated networks, behind APIs, and across agents that authenticate and act on their own," said John Maddison, Chief Marketing Officer at F5. "Enterprises cannot assemble a security posture from dozens of disparate point products. More than 40 vendors are competing to secure enterprise AI, and most are solving one slice of the problem. In our view, F5's positioning in the Market Shapers quadrant offers confirmation of a straightforward conviction: security leaders cannot govern what they cannot see, and AI cannot be secured from the outside in. F5 secures AI where enterprises actually run it." Securing AI where enterprises run it Enterprise AI has inverted the traditional security model. Today's AI systems operate with greater access, autonomy, and speed than human users are capable of, and the pace of adoption is outrunning the controls meant to govern it. F5's 2026 State of Application Strategy Report found that 88 per cent of organisations have already encountered at least one AI-related operational or security challenge, and 98 per cent are preparing for agentic AI. Meeting these challenges takes more than a collection of point products. AI application security spans the models and applications themselves, the agents that act on their behalf, the MCP servers and APIs that connect them, and the data they can reach. Securing that expansive surface calls for four essential components: * A comprehensive platform with centralised management across every AI workflow * Proven application security capabilities extended into agent-based controls, where intent-aware access control and continuous runtime monitoring govern what an autonomous agent is permitted to do * Adversarial testing wired directly into automated runtime defences, so what red teaming uncovers becomes what production enforces * Secure, air-gapped deployment for regulated sectors where sovereignty is not optional By bringing these capabilities together, F5 is shaping the AI security market and delivering substantive protections to security leaders. F5's approach is grounded in the premise that has shaped the company since its founding: security has to live where traffic flows. Every model call, agent action, and MCP connection traverses the network and application layers, where F5 already delivers and secures applications and APIs for the world's largest banks, carriers, governments, and consumer brands. That vantage point is what allows F5 to unify governance, discovery, testing, runtime protection, and observability - across generative and agentic AI - into a continuous loop rather than a collection of disparate tools, and to deliver those capabilities across hybrid multicloud, on-premises, air-gapped, private cloud, hybrid, and public cloud environments, including those where data residency and sovereignty are non-negotiable. It also shows up in measured performance. F5 AI Guardrails demonstrated up to 98.4 per cent security efficacy in independent testing, enforcing protections inline at the point of interaction rather than inspecting after the fact. F5 AI Red Team stress-tests AI systems against more than 140,000 attack patterns drawn from the industry's deepest AI threat database and converts what it finds directly into enforceable runtime defences. And because F5 discovers AI activity at the network layer, security teams gain visibility into every model, agent, and MCP call - including shadow AI - without a single application integration or code change. "The AI application security market is going to consolidate around vendors who can operate at enterprise scale, in regulated environments, with real traffic and real consequences," Maddison added. "F5's 30 years of experience in these demanding environments gives our customers the foundation to confidently and securely build for the future with AI." Customer demand for F5's AI security solutions is growing as the gap between AI adoption and AI control widens. In its third quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings results, F5 reported that the number of customers purchasing F5 solutions for AI security doubled quarter-over-quarter. Additional information on F5's AI security portfolio is available at f5.com/ai. Supporting resources

F5 and Salesforce announced an integration on 2 September, embedding F5 AI Guardrails into MuleSoft's Agent Fabric Omni Gateway. The partnership aims to address security risks in agentic AI deployments, including prompt injection and data leakage. F5 reported Q3 FY26 revenue of $865 million, up 11% year-over-year, with non-GAAP operating margin at 35.0%. Salesforce posted Q2 FY27 revenue of $11.3 billion, also up 11%, with non-GAAP operating margin of 34.1%. Salesforce raised full-year FY27 revenue guidance to $46.1 billion–$46.4 billion. Both companies operate at similar profitability levels. Salesforce leads in scale with $33.5 billion in cRPO backlog, whilst F5 benefits from specialised AI security positioning. Agentforce ARR grew 210% year-over-year, nearing $3.9 billion.