Cloud networking company Cato Networks Ltd. today announced the launch of Cato Autonomous Policies, a new artificial intelligence capability built into the Cato SASE Cloud Platform that automates and optimizes policy management.

Cato claims the Autonomous Policies are the world’s first secure access service edge-native policy analysis engine built to optimize and improve all SASE policies — security, access and networking. With the release, enterprises can experience targeted, AI-driven recommendations for eliminating unnecessary security exposure, tightening access control and proactively improving network performance.

The policies reduce risk, eliminate manual upkeep and simplify compliance, paving the way for proactive governance and autonomous SASE.

The first use case for Cato Autonomous Policies is firewall-as-a-service to tackle firewall rule bloat. Cato argues that over time, organizations accumulate thousands of policies, many outdated, overly permissive or misconfigured, leading to increased risk, decreased efficiency and compliance challenges.

Cato Networks’ FWaaS already simplifies access control with a unified policy set that covers users, devices, locations and cloud environments. With the new addition of Cato Autonomous Policies, the service is enhanced through AI-driven automation and optimization.

The new capabilities help eliminate policy drift and misconfigurations by providing continuous, AI-powered insights. The insights provided ensure that policies remain accurate and effective across on-premises, hybrid and multicloud deployments, reducing the risk of human error.

Cato Autonomous Policies also enable real-time zero-trust enforcement, refining access rules using live telemetry data to deliver stronger microsegmentation and ensure that least-privilege access is maintained consistently throughout the network.

For security leaders, the offering provides a path to proactive operations by helping reduce operational risk and cost. It also automates routine tasks to ease information technology workloads and simplifies compliance through continuous monitoring and intelligent policy recommendations.

“For years, IT leaders have chased the dream of autonomous networking and security, only to hit a wall of complexity,” said Ofir Agasi, vice president of product management at Cato Networks. “With Cato Autonomous Policies, we finally cross that threshold. Cato automatically transforms complex networking and security policy sets into optimized rules, empowering IT to lead, not lag.”

Cato Autonomous Policies is now generally available and included as a native capability of the Cato SASE Cloud Platform.

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