Protecting SaaS AI Agents with Cisco AI Defense and AppOmni

Enterprise AI brokers are not experimental. Organizations are deploying brokers inside ServiceNow, Microsoft 365, and different SaaS platforms to deal with all the things from IT assist tickets to monetary workflows. These brokers entry delicate information, take actual actions, and work together with staff and clients day-after-day. 

Safety groups face a troublesome query: how do you shield an AI agent you didn’t construct, working inside an utility you don’t management? 

Till now, organizations may apply guardrails to the AI functions they constructed themselves. However the SaaS AI brokers spreading throughout their environments operated exterior that safety perimeter. That hole is closing. 

We’re excited to announce the combination between Cisco AI Protection and AppOmni that brings full runtime guardrails to SaaS AI brokers. Joint clients can now shield brokers working in platforms like Microsoft 365 Copilot and ServiceNow Now Help with the identical guardrails they use for each different AI agent of their setting.

How AI Protection and AppOmni Integration Works 

AppOmni AgentGuard acts as a real-time intercept layer inside SaaS environments. It screens AI agent interactions throughout chat, Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP), and agent-to-agent communication channels. When an interplay happens, AgentGuard routes the payload to the AppOmni cloud evaluation engine, which calls Cisco AI Protection for guardrail analysis. AI Protection applies the configured insurance policies and returns an enforcement verdict: enable, block, or terminate. 

The result’s real-time safety in opposition to security, safety, and privateness assaults together with immediate injection, software exploitation, delicate information exfiltration, and dangerous content material—all enforced earlier than the SaaS agent can act. These are constantly knowledgeable by menace intelligence from Cisco’s AI safety analysis staff, which implies protections evolve as new methods emerge. 

With our newly-announced Coverage Studio, AI Protection guardrails are extra highly effective and private than ever earlier than. Safety groups can outline customized guardrails that shield in opposition to threats particular to their brokers, their industries, and their use circumstances. A monetary companies agency can create guardrails that stop an agent from disclosing portfolio allocation methods. A healthcare group can construct protections particular to how their brokers deal with affected person information. These are usually not generic guidelines. They’re guardrails formed by the context of your online business. 

And since this integration brings the total Cisco AI Protection coverage engine to AppOmni, clients get a uniform coverage throughout each agent of their setting. The guardrails defending your internally constructed brokers are the identical guardrails defending your SaaS brokers. One coverage, configured as soon as, enforced all over the place.  

Agentic Safety Designed for Safety Leaders 

The combination solves a easy however essential drawback: SaaS AI brokers shouldn’t be a safety exception. 

Earlier than this, safety groups had two selections. Apply generic, out-of-the-box protections to SaaS brokers and hope they cowl your particular dangers or settle for a spot between the tailor-made insurance policies defending your first-party brokers and the restricted controls out there in your SaaS brokers. 

Now, the customized guardrails you authored in your particular threats apply to your SaaS brokers too. Your ServiceNow Now Help brokers get the identical safety as your internally constructed brokers. Your Microsoft 365 Copilot interactions are topic to the identical insurance policies. No separate software. No separate configuration. One coverage, enforced uniformly, no matter the place the agent runs.  

Get Began 

The Cisco AI Protection and AppOmni integration is accessible to joint clients at the moment. To find out how your group can lengthen AI Protection guardrails into your SaaS AI brokers, attain out to the Cisco gross sales staff or go to the Cisco AI Protection product web page.