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8 insights from Proofpoint Protect: Security bets on intent as AI agents join the workforce. At this week's Proofpoint Protect event, the security debate moved beyond whether enterprises will deploy AI agents to how they will govern them. Attackers now use AI to write flawless phishing lures and chain exploits at machine speed. Meanwhile, the agents companies run internally act as insiders, with access to data, systems and inboxes. The next phase will be defined by intent. Defenders are building knowledge graphs and intent-based models that judge whether a human or an agent is doing what it should. They are also turning written governance policies into real-time controls. Frontier labs have added urgency, with Anthropic PBC expanding Project Glasswing to put its vulnerability-hunting Mythos Preview model in more defenders' hands. "The large enterprises that are competing, they look at the transformation edge that they're trying to get as the competitive edge. So their game is speed," said John Furrier, executive analyst for theCUBE Research. "They know that if they can beat the competition with better products and better outcomes, they win. Now, the risk is the security piece." Executives and researchers from Proofpoint Inc. and Anthropic spoke to Furrier during Proofpoint Protect in San Diego, with exclusive coverage from theCUBE + NYSE Wired. The interviews covered agentic threats, knowledge graphs, platform consolidation and why this is both the best and worst of times for AI agents. Here are eight standout insights from the event: 1. Security teams shift from blocking AI to enabling safer adoption. Customers are approaching agentic AI with cautious optimism, and security teams are being pushed to stop blocking projects and start enabling safe AI use. Identifying the intent of an agent or a human is now the most critical step, because an agent given a job can optimize its way into doing something else entirely, explained Molly McLain Sterling (pictured), senior director of cybersecurity strategy at Proofpoint. 2. Intent becomes the foundation for two new agentic security systems. Proofpoint introduced two new agentic systems for collaboration security and data and AI security, both built on a knowledge graph that tracks how people and AI communicate and access data. Because no company can patch every vulnerability, enterprises need compensating controls that judge the intent of every human and agent, according to Sumit Dhawan, chief executive officer of Proofpoint. 3. Tiered intent models target attacks that appear legitimate. Attackers increasingly hijack legitimate supplier email threads without using malware, so Proofpoint has added intent-based models to its Nexus detection suite that run in Flash, Extended-Thinking and Deep-Thinking tiers. A new Community Hyperloop spreads each new detection to every customer at machine speed, noted Tom Corn, executive vice president and general manager of the Threat Protection Group at Proofpoint. 4. AI agents emerge as insider risks concentrated on enterprise endpoints. About 99% of the agentic activity Proofpoint monitors runs on ordinary endpoints rather than in the cloud, which makes its tens of millions of endpoint sensors the foundation for agent security. Governance policies written for humans must be turned into real-time controls that agents can understand, emphasized Ryan Kalember, chief strategy officer of Proofpoint. 5. Anthropic urges enterprises to engineer for trust before scaling agents. Anthropic held back general release of its Mythos Preview model to build guardrails and get it to defenders first, since new models can chain low-severity vulnerabilities into serious exploits. Companies should write policy, set up sandboxing and visibility, and start small with a clear view of the blast radius, advised Robert Bair, head of national security partnerships at Anthropic. 6. Proofpoint nears $2.5B in annual recurring revenue as customers consolidate. Proofpoint's annual recurring revenue is close to $2.5 billion and growing nearly 20%, including Hornetsecurity, after doubling since Thoma Bravo LP took it private in 2021. Security chiefs are consolidating providers to free up budget for AI, including a Canadian bank that replaced four suppliers in a $25 million, five-year deal, shared Remi Thomas, chief financial officer of Proofpoint. 7. AI divides cyberattackers into increasingly skilled and sloppy camps. Skilled threat actors use AI to speed up malware development and copy lures into as many as 16 languages, while low-end actors are getting sloppier. Static detections now lose their value quickly, so defenders must build dynamic ones that anticipate attackers' next moves, highlighted Selena Larson, principal threat researcher at Proofpoint. 8. Knowledge graphs become the control layer for human and AI access. As humans and AI agents increasingly access data directly, enterprises need a way to understand both why access is happening and what each actor is allowed to touch. Proofpoint is building around a knowledge graph that connects actors, actions and data, creating a contextual layer for governance, detection and remediation as AI systems operate continuously, according to Mayank "MC" Choudhary, EVP and GM of the Data Security and Governance Group at Proofpoint. Photo: SiliconANGLE. 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Proofpoint named a Pace Setter as of September 2026 in the Gartner Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application Security - Established Vendors. Share with your network! September 23, 2026 Tim Choi Proofpoint, Inc. is excited to share that Proofpoint has been recognized as a Pace Setter in Gartner's inaugural 2026 Emerging Market Quadrant(TM) for AI Application Security - Established Vendors. As organizations rapidly adopt AI assistants and autonomous AI agents, the challenge is no longer simply protecting AI models - it is governing how AI interacts with employees, enterprise data, and business systems. Proofpoint, Inc. believe this recognition reflects the growing importance of securing AI across the entire enterprise. The Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application Security evaluates vendors based on Potential to Execute and Potential for Market Disruption. Emerging Market Quadrant is designed to help clients understand the dynamics of relatively new and fast-moving market capabilities and form shortlists of technology providers to explore when making tech-buying, partnering, acquisition, and investment decisions. Proofpoint, Inc. is proud to be recognized as a Pace Setter in Gartner's inaugural evaluation. According to Gartner, Pace Setter vendors are organizations whose "operational scale is supported by strong financial resources, global reach, and established customer bases, enabling them to quickly adapt to evolving AI security needs." Securing the Agentic Workspace. Proofpoint, Inc. believe AI is fundamentally changing how work gets done. Employees are increasingly collaborating with AI assistants, while autonomous AI agents are beginning to perform business tasks on behalf of the enterprise. Together, humans, AI, enterprise data, and business applications are forming what Proofpoint, Inc. call the Agentic Workspace. Securing this new operating model requires more than traditional cybersecurity controls. Organizations need visibility into how AI is being used, governance that reflects enterprise business policies, and runtime protection that ensures AI actions remain aligned with organizational intent. Its AI Security platform is designed around three core principles: * Secure how humans and AI agents use AI, preventing misuse and helping organizations detect rogue behavior. * Secure AI and data as one, combining Proofpoint's expertise in protecting sensitive information with governance for AI interactions. * Govern security, business, and safety risks, ensuring AI actions align with enterprise policies through the combination of enforcing written policies and understanding intent These principles underpin innovations Proofpoint, Inc. is announcing at Protect such as Semantic Business Policies, Intent-Based Access Control, and Agentic Insights, helping organizations operationalize governance across employees, AI assistants, and autonomous AI agents. The next chapter of AI security is about governing AI across the enterprise. As organizations embrace the Agentic Workspace, they need a solution that not only protects AI, but also operationalizes governance, understands intent, and continuously adapts to emerging risks. Proofpoint, Inc. believe this recognition from Gartner reinforces its vision for the future of AI security, and Proofpoint, Inc. is excited to continue helping customers build trusted AI at enterprise scale. Gartner, Emerging Market Quadrant for AI Application Security - Established Vendors, By Meghan Hollis, Dionisio Zumerle, Dennis Xu, Marissa Schmidt, 14 September 2026 Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. GARTNER is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Proofpoint.

Proofpoint stops the attacks traditional defences miss in the AI era. Intent-based detection and multi-stage AI reasoning identify and stop sophisticated attacks before, during and after they reach people. Proofpoint announced the Agentic Collaboration Security system, bringing together a new intent-based detection model and agentic capabilities to protect how people communicate and collaborate. The Proofpoint Agentic Collaboration Security system reasons about what an interaction is trying to accomplish, uses context to distinguish malicious intent from legitimate activity, and turns those decisions into action across email, collaboration tools, and the browser. The hardest attacks to detect increasingly resemble normal business activity. A compromised supplier can be leveraged to attack through existing email threads, appearing as normal exchanges to users and defenses. A fraudulent payment request can match an established business relationship. An attack targeting one executive may never repeat. In addition, AI has increased the volume, speed, and sophistication of attacks. When the account, conversation, and request all appear familiar, behavioral anomalies alone may not reveal the threat. Detection must understand both the context surrounding an interaction and its intent. "Attackers increasingly operate inside the relationships and workflows organizations already trust," said Tom Corn, executive vice president and general manager, Threat Protection Group at Proofpoint. "That changes the detection problem. Security needs to understand what an interaction is trying to accomplish, reason over the context around it, and act before the attacker succeeds. Not with disparate tools, but as one system that gets smarter with every decision it makes." One shared foundation At the foundation of the Proofpoint Agentic Collaboration Security system is the Proofpoint Knowledge Graph, which combines threat intelligence on active campaigns, industry attack patterns, and compromised suppliers with organizational context including business relationships, communication patterns, data access, and user risk. The new Nexus Intent-Based Detection Model reasons over that context using multi-stage analysis that adjusts to the ambiguity of each interaction. Most decisions resolve in under half a second, while ambiguous cases receive deeper analysis to determine what a message is trying to accomplish and whether that objective is plausible in context. Together, the Knowledge Graph and Nexus model provide a shared foundation, allowing intelligence from one control point to inform detection, investigation, and user protection across the system. From intent-based detection to agentic action. Because Proofpoint operates both email gateway and API-based protection, intent analysis can begin before delivery and continue in the inbox, with intelligence learned downstream continuously strengthening pre-delivery detection. Proofpoint is the only secure email gateway to deliver intent-based detection before a message reaches the user. * Intent-based detection: Proofpoint applies intent reasoning before delivery at the email gateway and in the inbox through the API. For individuals with outsized access or transaction authority, including executives and finance approvers, Privileged User Protection builds dedicated detection models to identify highly targeted attacks engineered for a specific individual. * Autonomous threat investigation: Proofpoint automatically reconstructs attacks, identifies related messages, determines blast radius, and assembles the evidence needed for response, dramatically reducing the manual effort and time required to investigate attacks across affected users. * Adaptive user protection: Proofpoint continuously identifies and analyzes high-risk users based on each organization's unique environment, explains the factors driving their risk, and dynamically adapts protection and real-time coaching. Behind the scenes, Blue Team and Red Team agents continuously assess risk and test defenses using relevant business context to identify weaknesses and strengthen protection before attackers can exploit them. Strengthening protection at time of click. Proofpoint is also introducing Advanced Browser protection, providing a comprehensive security control point that extends continuous collaboration security beyond the gateway and inbox to the browser. Built in partnership with Push Security, the enhanced solution is the first collaboration security offering to unify Proofpoint's industry-leading email threat intelligence with browser-native protection, helping organizations stop post-click phishing and malicious URLs in the browser, malicious browser extensions, OAuth phishing, credential theft, session hijacking, and other browser-borne attacks. Browser telemetry is integrated into Threat Protection Workbench, the Proofpoint Security Graph, and the Investigation Agent, giving security teams unified visibility and investigation workflows across the entire collaboration attack chain - from message delivery through browser interaction. Availability.