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Fastly highlights need for stronger AI traffic controls. Oct 20, 2026 BORACAY - Fans who spend hours in online queues for concert tickets may be competing with bots or software used to line up and buy tickets automatically. For businesses, the challenge is knowing which bots to block and which to let in, since some also help real customers shop. In an interview with Back End News on the sidelines of the VSTECS CXO Tech Summit, which runs until Oct. 23, Rachel Ler, area vice president for Fastly in Asia, described how users are asking AI tools to find products and make purchases on their behalf. Such requests give businesses a reason to allow some automated traffic on their websites. "What are the rules that the customer wants to set within their environment to make sure that they allow meaningful bots to come in and do meaningful transactions with their business?" Ler said. Fastly provides an edge platform covering content delivery, next-generation security, AI workload controls, and edge computing. Ler said the company helps businesses identify automated visitors and understand their behavior so they can decide which activities to allow or block. It also offers businesses with Fastly AI Bot Management and Bot Management tools to monitor, control, and block AI chatbots, LLM crawlers, and automated scrapers Learn AI Tools Ler also explained that businesses can see which platforms bot traffic comes from and distinguish between activities such as AI crawling and fetching information. This gives them a clearer picture of how automated visitors use their websites. Discover more Read Daily News Read Tech News Follow Stars Ler described users asking AI tools to find and buy materials for a project, such as building a drone. These requests can automate parts of the shopping process. Blocking that activity could interrupt a potential purchase. Other uses call for a different assessment. Ler cited bots collecting prices during Black Friday sales, when retailers compete on small price differences. She said this activity can hurt a retailer's business. Collecting prices is not automatically a security attack. Whether to allow it depends on the retailer's rules and business needs. Ler said Fastly works with customers to understand those needs before setting security rules. The aim is to give businesses control over automated access while allowing activities they consider useful. Those controls also need to work for people trying to use the service. In concert ticket sales, Ler said sellers are looking at waiting room solutions that allow buyers proceed to seat selection and payment when their turn arrives. However, checks designed to stop bots can also delay legitimate buyers. This is particularly frustrating when tickets are limited and customers have little time to complete a purchase. Ler discussed token-based user verification as a way to reduce reliance on image challenges, such as asking customers to select traffic lights. For online sellers, the question is whether a security check protects the transaction without making it unnecessarily difficult to complete. Bot controls and the buying experience need to be considered together. Businesses also need to understand how their applications connect to back-end systems containing customer information. These connections, called application programming interfaces, or APIs, allow software to exchange data. Ler said some businesses do not have a clear picture of the APIs their applications use or the information those connections can access. Discover more Get Cloud Storage Amazon Web Services Learn AI Tools She said Fastly's edge platform supports API discovery, helping customers identify these connections before deciding what protection each one needs. An inventory gives IT teams a starting point: know which connections exist, determine what information they need, and set access rules accordingly. Fastly also offers AI Runtime Control (ARC), which manages connections between applications and AI services. It helps businesses control access, track usage and costs, and keep those connections reliable. This serves a different purpose from managing bots visiting a public website. Learn AI Tools For Philippine businesses with small IT teams, Ler emphasized simpler management. She said a modular approach lets customers start with the capabilities they need and add more as their requirements grow. A common management interface can reduce training needs and make troubleshooting easier. Real-time information about incoming attacks also helps teams decide how to respond. Businesses should start by identifying the problem they need to solve, whether that is unwanted content collection, bots disrupting purchases, or unclear access to customer information. Those needs should guide their choice of security tools. "Focus on the business challenges that you want to solve, and then you can decide what platforms serve you best," Ler said. Fastly provides an edge platform covering content delivery, next-generation security, AI workload controls, and edge computing. Ler said the company helps businesses identify automated visitors and understand their behavior so they can decide which activities to allow or block. Ler also explained that businesses can see which platforms bot traffic comes from and distinguish between activities such as AI crawling and fetching information. This gives them a clearer picture of how automated visitors use their websites. Ler described users asking AI tools to find and buy materials for a project, such as building a drone. These requests can automate parts of the shopping process. Blocking that activity could interrupt a potential purchase. Other uses call for a different assessment. Ler cited bots collecting prices during Black Friday sales, when retailers compete on small price differences. She said this activity can hurt a retailer's business. Discover more Learn Tagalog Look Up Facts Collecting prices is not automatically a security attack. Whether to allow it depends on the retailer's rules and business needs. Ler said Fastly works with customers to understand those needs before setting security rules. The aim is to give businesses control over automated access while allowing activities they consider useful. Those controls also need to work for people trying to use the service. In concert ticket sales, Ler said sellers are looking at waiting room solutions that allow buyers proceed to seat selection and payment when their turn arrives. However, checks designed to stop bots can also delay legitimate buyers. This is particularly frustrating when tickets are limited and customers have little time to complete a purchase. Ler discussed token-based user verification as a way to reduce reliance on image challenges, such as asking customers to select traffic lights. For online sellers, the question is whether a security check protects the transaction without making it unnecessarily difficult to complete. Bot controls and the buying experience need to be considered together. Businesses also need to understand how their applications connect to back-end systems containing customer information. These connections, called application programming interfaces, or APIs, allow software to exchange data. Ler said some businesses do not have a clear picture of the APIs their applications use or the information those connections can access. She said Fastly's edge platform supports API discovery, helping customers identify these connections before deciding what protection each one needs. An inventory gives IT teams a starting point: know which connections exist, determine what information they need, and set access rules accordingly. Fastly also offers AI Runtime Control (ARC), which manages connections between applications and AI services. It helps businesses control access, track usage and costs, and keep those connections reliable. This serves a different purpose from managing bots visiting a public website. For Philippine businesses with small IT teams, Ler emphasized simpler management. She said a modular approach lets customers start with the capabilities they need and add more as their requirements grow. A common management interface can reduce training needs and make troubleshooting easier. Real-time information about incoming attacks also helps teams decide how to respond. Businesses should start by identifying the problem they need to solve, whether that is unwanted content collection, bots disrupting purchases, or unclear access to customer information. Those needs should guide their choice of security tools. "Focus on the business challenges that you want to solve, and then you can decide what platforms serve you best," Ler said.

Fastly named a Leader in 2026 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide WAAP Platforms. Fastly | Published 16 Oct 2026 COMPANY NEWS: Company brings delivery, security, and compute together to accelerate enterprise innovation at global scale Fastly, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLY), a leader in global edge cloud platforms, today announced it has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Web Application and API Protection Platforms 2026 Vendor Assessment. Fastly has continued to invest in the security portfolio of its edge cloud platform, bringing delivery, security, and compute together to help businesses move fast and stay safe in the AI era. The company's security offerings include Next-Gen WAF, Bot Management, DDoS Protection, API Security, AI Firewall, and Client-Side Protection, all running inline on its global network. Fastly's security portfolio includes patent-pending deception technology that goes beyond blocking account takeover attempts by returning intentionally false information to attackers, cross-customer threat intelligence that supports preemptive policy decisions, and AI bot management that helps customers control how AI crawlers and bots access their content. According to the IDC MarketScape, "Detection is powered by two proprietary engines, SmartParse for WAF and the Adaptive Threat Engine for DDoS, delivered inline at every point of presence rather than through centralized scrubbing centers." In our view, these capabilities help to address a changing threat landscape as bot traffic exceeds 50% in many industries based on Fastly traffic in January 2026 and AI brings new challenges for businesses. The report also noted that Fastly reported a "98.7% annual revenue retention rate for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, and 117% last 12 months (LTM) net retention rate as of June 30, 2026." "Complexity is fractalizing. Every enterprise has seen an explosion in APIs, speed of change, and AI agents and bots calling them. Single, siloed defenses do not work. Fastly runs differentiated layers of defense that compound as applications multiply," said Kelly Shortridge, Chief Product Officer at Fastly. "I believe being named a Leader in this year's IDC MarketScape for WAAP Platforms reflects our depth of investment in protecting our customers' AI-native applications - from patent-pending Deception to our more recent API Enforcement and AI Firewall." Fastly's edge cloud platform helps enterprises build and scale secure, high-performance applications closer to users and data. To learn more about Fastly's edge cloud platform or access a complimentary copy of the IDC MarketScape excerpt, visit www.fastly.com. IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Web Application and API Protection Platforms 2026 Vendor Assessment, September 2026, IDC # US54130626.

Fastly named Leader in IDC MarketScape WAAP assessment. Fri, 16th Oct 2026 (Today) Fastly has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Web Application and API Protection Platforms 2026 Vendor Assessment, placing it among the vendors assessed in the web application and API protection market. IDC MarketScape said Fastly's detection relies on two proprietary engines: SmartParse for web application firewall functions and the Adaptive Threat Engine for distributed denial-of-service protection. According to the assessment, both are delivered inline at every point of presence rather than through centralised scrubbing centres. The assessment comes as companies face rising volumes of bot-driven web traffic and growing complexity in how applications are built and exposed through APIs. Fastly said bot traffic exceeded 50% in many industries, based on traffic on its network in January 2026. It linked that figure to broader shifts in online security as artificial intelligence tools and automated agents become more common. Fastly's security products include Next-Gen WAF, Bot Management, DDoS Protection, API Security, AI Firewall and Client-Side Protection. The company said these services run inline on its global network as part of its broader edge cloud platform. Security focus The company has expanded that portfolio with features aimed at newer attack patterns and traffic management concerns. These include patent-pending deception technology designed to respond to account takeover attempts by returning false information to attackers, as well as cross-customer threat intelligence intended to support pre-emptive policy decisions. Fastly also highlighted AI bot management tools that let customers control how AI crawlers and bots access their content. AI-generated traffic has become a growing issue for publishers, online retailers and digital platforms that need to distinguish between legitimate automated access, malicious scraping and abusive traffic. The IDC MarketScape report also cited customer retention figures disclosed by Fastly. It noted that the company reported a 98.7% annual revenue retention rate for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, and a 117% last 12 months net retention rate as of June 30, 2026. Those metrics offer one indication of customer stickiness in a competitive market, where vendors are trying to combine application delivery, cloud security and edge infrastructure into broader platforms. For customers, the appeal of that model often depends on whether one provider can reduce operational complexity across multiple layers of internet-facing services. Market backdrop Web application and API protection, often referred to as WAAP, has become a more prominent category as businesses shift more services online and expose more application interfaces to partners, developers and internal systems. APIs are now central to mobile apps, eCommerce systems, software integrations and machine-to-machine communications, making them a larger target for abuse and misconfiguration. At the same time, cybersecurity teams are dealing with more fragmented environments. Organisations often use separate products for web application firewalls, bot mitigation, DDoS defence, API discovery and client-side monitoring. That can create operational overhead and leave gaps between tools. Fastly argues that those defences should operate together on the same network layer. It has positioned its edge-based model as an alternative to architectures that route traffic to centralised cleaning or inspection points before it reaches applications. Kelly Shortridge, Chief Product Officer at Fastly, said the volume of APIs and automated traffic has made older approaches less effective. "Complexity is fractalising. Every enterprise has seen an explosion in APIs, speed of change, and AI agents and bots calling them. Single, siloed defences do not work. Fastly runs differentiated layers of defence that compound as applications multiply," Shortridge said. Shortridge also linked the IDC MarketScape designation to the company's recent product development in application and AI-related security. "I believe being named a Leader in this year's IDC MarketScape for WAAP Platforms reflects our depth of investment in protecting our customers' AI-native applications - from patent-pending Deception to our more recent API Enforcement and AI Firewall," Shortridge said. IDC MarketScape's comments on Fastly's inline deployment model and its retention rates suggest the company is seeking to differentiate itself on both technical architecture and customer performance as WAAP buyers weigh how to protect increasingly automated application environments.