As enterprises rush to adopt AI, their security architectures are becoming increasingly fragmented. One solution is to adopt a network security platform that brings networking and security together in a single, consistently governed fabric.

During Black Hat 2026, Anthony James, executive vice president of marketing at Fortinet Inc., outlined how the company is bringing networking and security together to help enterprises manage AI-era complexity.

“If you look 20 years after we started this whole idea of unifying threat management on a firewall, we’re now seeing that convergence of networking and security,” James said. “Platforms are becoming much more evolved, and [chief information security officers] are trying to cope with [the question], ‘How do I make sure my infrastructure gives productivity to my end users, but also eliminates as much risk as possible?'”

James spoke with theCUBE Research’s Krista Case at Black Hat USA during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how Fortinet’s Security Fabric differs from platformization, what the Secure Access Service Edge firewall vision means in practice and where enterprises need the most help as AI moves from experimentation into production. (* Disclosure below.)

Network security platform unifies network and security controls

Fortinet’s Security Fabric is built on a foundational principle that distinguishes it from what James termed bolted-on platform approaches. Every product Fortinet builds must integrate natively, share consistent data and simplify the operator’s experience from the beginning.

“Anything we build to help a CISO or a practitioner solve a security challenge, we build it with those foundational elements in mind,” James said. “Data is consistent, the experience is consistent and it simplifies the user’s experience at the end of the day.”

As the next step in the strategy, Fortinet’s SASE Firewall applies a common policy across on-premises and cloud deployments, challenging the cloud-first approach taken by some SASE vendors. As AI moves from experimentation to production, Fortinet is also building governance capabilities around internally deployed AI factories, controlling which agents and Model Context Protocol servers are sanctioned, monitoring token usage and ensuring machine-to-machine communications are legitimate.

“Now what we’re seeing is customers want to know what people are doing with their AI infrastructure internally,” James said. “Are they standing up elements of AI that’s not sanctioned, like agents and MCP servers and downloading code to their desktop? That’s a big no-no, and that could be sending data outside to train other models.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Black Hat USA:

(* Disclosure: Fortinet sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Fortinet nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE