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Let’s face it, the digital threat landscape is more perilous today than ever before. We’re not just navigating issues like malware and hackers, we’re dealing with AI-powered social engineering scams, deepfakes and evolving phishing campaigns. All the while, companies are relying more heavily on faster, more efficient network connections to keep processes running smoothly.
It’s a difficult world to navigate – to the point where countless companies are beginning to overhaul their strategies with AI networks, and cutting-edge SDWAN or SASE solutions. In fact, right now, the SASE market is growing at a CAGR of around 29%, expected to reach a value of $25 billion by 2027.
Already, innovative SDWAN solutions and SASE systems offer companies opportunities to improve network performance, reduce latency, and minimize risks. But when companies add AI to the mix, the results are astronomical.
AI startups and established organizations are both transforming how businesses approach security and connectivity, making networks smarter, more adaptive, and more secure.
Here’s your guide to the future of AI networks, and turbocharged SDWAN/SASE solutions.
The Rise of AI Networks: Intelligent Infrastructure
Managing today’s IT infrastructure is like juggling flaming swords – it’s complex, demanding, and requires a high level of skill. IT teams are inundated with alerts, making it challenging to identify and prioritize genuine issues. Adding fuel to the fire is the ongoing shortage of skilled IT professionals, making automation not just a luxury but a necessity.
AI is shaking up every aspect of the networking landscape, introducing new opportunities for automation, and optimized service management. AI networks can automate tasks such as configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting. They can enhance resource allocation, minimize downtime, and even proactively improve SDWAN connections.
Plus, since AI Networks solutions enhance resource management, they can help to reduce a company’s carbon footprint too. In the SDWAN and SASE space AI is revolutionizing how companies access and improve network connections.
AI in SD-WAN
SD-WAN revolutionizes network connectivity by decoupling the control and data planes, enabling dynamic path selection across multiple connections. The infusion of AI into SD-WAN enhances opportunities for businesses with:
- Simplified Network Configuration: AI algorithms analyze traffic patterns, allowing for automated and optimized network configurations. This reduces the need for manual intervention and minimizes configuration errors.
- Enhanced Performance: By swiftly adapting to user behavior and network conditions, AI ensures optimal application performance, reducing latency and improving user experience.
- Predictive Maintenance: AI’s predictive analytics identify network anomalies before they escalate, enabling proactive maintenance and reducing downtime.
- Improved Security: AI enhances threat detection by analyzing vast amounts of data to identify malicious activities, thereby strengthening the network’s security posture.
According to Gartner, by 2027, around 70% of network operations personnel will be relying on generative AI for SD-WAN management – up from less than 5% in 2024.
AI in SASE
SASE converges networking and security services into a unified, cloud-native solution, providing secure access regardless of user location. Integrating AI into SASE frameworks offers several advantages:
- Autonomous Management: AI enables self-managing networks that can autonomously handle tasks such as policy enforcement and threat response, reducing burden on IT teams.
- Predictive Analytics: By analyzing usage patterns and potential threats, AI provides predictive insights, allowing organizations to address issues proactively.
- Enhanced User Experience: AI optimizes network paths and security measures in real-time, ensuring seamless and secure access to applications and data.
The integration of AI into SASE frameworks leads to more intelligent, proactive, and user-centric network solutions – and less admin work for teams.
Alignment of AI in SD-WAN and SASE
While SDWAN focuses on optimizing wide-area network performance and SASE emphasizes secure access, AI serves as a unifying force enhancing both. In SDWAN, AI streamlines network operations and boosts performance. In SASE, AI fortifies security measures and ensures efficient access control. Together, they represent a cohesive advancement toward networks that are not only more intelligent and adaptive but also more secure and user-friendly.
The Benefits of AI Networks: SASE and SDWAN Redefined
Artificial intelligence in SD-WAN and SASE networks is about more than just automating tasks. It can significantly improve a company’s network performance, reduce security risks, and enhance sustainability, all while cutting costs.
With AI-powered SASE and SDWAN, companies benefit from:
Improved Network Management and Performance
AI empowers SD-WAN solutions to analyze vast amounts of network data, enabling predictive maintenance and proactive issue resolution. By identifying patterns, AI can anticipate potential problems before they impact performance. That means IT teams can prevent or minimize disruptions.
For instance, AI-driven SD-WAN can automatically detect faults within the network and alert IT personnel, streamlining troubleshooting processes. In SASE architectures, AI enhances network observability by providing real-time insights into traffic patterns and application performance. This visibility allows for dynamic adjustments, ensuring optimal performance across the network.
Energy Efficiency and Sustainability
AI contributes to energy efficiency by optimizing network utilization without compromising performance. It can autonomously manage real-time and predicted traffic, enabling service providers to reduce energy consumption and lower their carbon footprint.
By analyzing traffic patterns, AI ensures that network resources are used efficiently, leading to significant energy savings. Plus, AI tools can ensure network resources are effectively distributed to remote and out-of-office employees, enabling more sustainable hybrid work strategies.
Enhanced Security
Integrating AI into SD-WAN and SASE solutions significantly bolsters security measures. AI algorithms can detect and prevent security threats, such as cyberattacks and fraud, by analyzing network behavior and identifying anomalies.
In SASE frameworks, AI enhances threat detection and proactive mitigation, providing real-time prevention of unknown and evasive threats. Machine learning techniques enable the system to cover a wider spectrum of threats compared to traditional security measures.
Improved User Experience
AI plays a crucial role in enhancing the user experience within SASE architectures. By leveraging globally distributed cloud services, AI enables effective autonomous digital experience management (ADEM), measuring the health and performance of connectivity.
AI aggregates data across the network, allowing IT administrators to correlate signals from network monitoring or user-reported issues, facilitating efficient problem identification and resolution. The pre-emptive capabilities of AI can even flag potential issues before users report them, promoting a proactive network management approach.
Streamlined Administrative Duties
For IT administrators, AI-powered SASE reduces the administrative burden by automating routine tasks, allowing them to focus on high-value activities. By integrating AIOps, AI-powered SASE automates complex IT and Network Operations Center (NOC) functions, increasing productivity and reducing MTTR. All of this boosts operational efficiency.
Plus, AI-powered SASE solutions are highly adaptable and scalable, accommodating changing business needs efficiently. Unlike traditional hardware-based architectures that can be challenging to scale, AI-powered SASE can easily adapt to changes such as business growth, acquisitions, or the addition of new office locations. This flexibility ensures that the network infrastructure remains robust and responsive to organizational demands.
Consistent Visibility and Smart Decision-Making
The convergence of AI, SD-WAN, and SASE solutions helps businesses maintain better visibility into their entire ecosystem. By leveraging AI and machine learning, smarter and data-driven decisions can be made for improved network management and security.
Constant visibility ensures that IT teams can monitor and manage the network effectively, leading to enhanced performance and security.
AI-Powered SASE and SDWAN Vendors to Watch
Countless new startups and traditional networking vendors are beginning to implement AI into their SD-WAN and SASE technologies. Just some of the key players reshaping the market include:
1. Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks is a heavyweight in the cybersecurity arena, and they’re going all-in on AI-powered SASE. Their Prisma SASE platform leverages machine learning and AI-driven analytics to detect threats in real-time, automate security responses, and optimize network performance.
The company’s AI-powered technology can identify potential attacks before they happen, automate threat response, and ensure only authorized users and devices gain access to a network, all while optimizing connectivity performance. If your business is deep in the cloud and security is your top priority, Palo Alto’s AI-driven SASE solution is worth considering.
2. Forcepoint
In 2024, Forcepoint launched it’s “Forcepoint Data Security Posture Management” solution, driven by artificial intelligence. This intelligent solution analyzes risk in real-time and automates security compliance, ensuring sensitive data is protected across cloud environments.
With Forcepoint, companies gain access to constant real-time monitoring solutions for threats in their networks, and automated compliance systems. Plus, the cloud-based SASE solution prioritizes flexibility and scalability, allowing companies to take advantage of performance and security improvements across all departments and endpoints.
3. Fortinet
Fortinet is well-known for its firewalls, but their AI-powered FortiSASE solution takes things to another level. This cloud-delivered security solution combines SD-WAN, Zero Trust, and AI-powered analytics to deliver secure, high-speed connectivity.
The AI-powered SASE system provides companies with all the core features they need, from flexible connectivity, to unified management, and digital experience management, as well as dedicated AI enhancements. If you need top-tier network security with high-speed performance, Fortinet’s AI-powered SASE is a solid choice.
4. Aryaka
Aryaka’s AI>Platform is one of the most exciting new entries to the AI networks landscape, introducing opportunities for companies to take advantage of automation, generative AI, and more in one unified package. This purpose-built SASE solution can automate customer service tasks, generate reports, optimize processes, and enhance security automatically.
AI-powered tools even provide staff members with decision-making support, and use predictive analytics to keep companies one step ahead of potential threats as they emerge. On top of all that, companies still benefit from low latency and exceptional network reliability.
5. Cato Networks
Cato Networks brings AI-driven intelligence to network security, integrating SD-WAN, cloud security, and AI analytics into a single platform. Companies can take advantage of threat intelligence tools enhanced by AI and machine learning, as well as automated threat prevention solutions, network management apps, and endpoint management tools.
The great thing about CATO Networks’ technology is that it empowers companies to work more cautiously, providing them with direct insights into the risks associated with different devices, applications, and connections as they work. For companies looking for an all-in-one AI-driven security solution, Cato Networks delivers.
6. Zscaler
Cloud-native security powerhouse, Zscaler, offers a range of AI-powered solutions for SASE, SDWAN and Zero-Trust Network Access. The company’s wide range of technologies take advantage of AI and machine learning to give businesses deeper insights into potential threat vectors, making it easier for organizations to leverage the cloud without risk.
Companies can also easily automate various security-focused tasks, such as threat monitoring and proactive threat response, with customizable tools. The Zscaler SASE solution also supports a multi-tenant architecture, with proxy-based architecture for full inspection of encrypted traffic.
7. Perimeter 81
Perimeter 81 is making waves as a rising star in the AI networks space, focusing on secure, cloud-based solutions for growing organizations. The company gives organizations access to intuitive tools for implementing AI-powered SASE into their network strategy – but they also go a step further, with end-to-end solutions for training and adoption management.
Perimeter 81 and the Check Point AI-powered SASE solution provides all the cutting-edge technology and expertise organizations need to future-proof network security and performance, in one package – making them ideal for businesses looking to upgrade for the first time.
8. Cloudflare
Zero-trust network security leader, Cloudflare, extended its single-vendor SASE platform, Cloudflare One, in 2023, to introduce generative AI features. The new AI suite comes packed with tools companies can use to create reports, analyze data, and proactively improve security with minimal effort. Companies can use AI tools to track network and employee performance, monitor potential security risks, and even implement data loss prevention strategies.
Plus, Cloudflare’s technologies seamlessly integrate with a range of other business applications and cloud-based tools – giving businesses comprehensive visibility into their entire ecosystem.
Future Trends in AI Networks: SASE and SDWAN Trends
So, what’s next for AI networks and AI-Powered SASE? Already, countless vendors are demonstrating the potential that artificial intelligence has to automate analyze, and optimize network security and performance.
In the years ahead, we can expect to see more updates in the following areas:
Enhanced User Interfaces
One focus area in the AI networks landscape is the ongoing development of AI-powered SASE and SDWAN solutions with natural language interfaces. These tools streamline the complex tasks encountered by IT administrators by giving them a way to interact with tools using plain English queries. This could help to expedite troubleshooting and problem solving tasks.
For instance, IT administrators could use a natural language interface to rapidly identify whether a specific user has access to a particular application. The AI tool could then analyze various factors, like network health and security policies to detect the source of connection issues.
Predictive and Proactive Network Maintenance
AI empowers organizations to adopt a proactive security posture by not only reacting to threats but anticipating them. Through continuous learning from network data, AI can predict potential vulnerabilities and recommend pre-emptive measures- strengthening the organization’s defense mechanisms against future attacks.
With predictive network management solutions, companies can get ahead of potential issues before they scale into serious problems, rapidly eliminating bottlenecks and security problems.
Enhanced Integrations
The trend towards single-vendor SASE solutions is gaining momentum. By consolidating networking and security functions under one provider, organizations benefit from simplified management, better integration, and potentially lower costs. But integration is crucial to enabling this consolidation.
AI-powered SASE and SDWAN solutions with support for built-in integrations and APIs will help to consolidate disparate technologies into unified ecosystems for connectivity and security. The right platforms will be able to help businesses analyze and optimize a range of network and security parameters, without relying on different tools.
Automated Network Configuration
Gone are the days of manual network setups. AI is stepping in to streamline the configuration process. By analyzing traffic patterns and user behaviors, AI can automatically configure network settings, ensuring optimal performance without human intervention.
This not only reduces the workload for IT teams but also minimizes the risk of human error. AI tools can even help to improve the performance of a network with dynamic path selection. By assessing real-time network conditions – such as latency, packet loss, and bandwidth availability -AI can determine the most efficient route for data packets. This ensures optimal application performance and a seamless user experience, even during peak traffic times.
Enhanced Threat Detection and Response
In the realm of cybersecurity, AI is proving to be a game changer. Machine learning algorithms can sift through vast amounts of data in real-time, identifying patterns that may indicate security threats. This rapid detection allows for immediate response, mitigating risks before they can cause harm.
Moreover, AI can adapt to new threat vectors, ensuring that security measures evolve alongside emerging cyber threats. With integrations with more tools and systems, AI-powered SASE and SDWAN solutions will also enable better visibility into the entire threat network.
Improved Digital Experience Monitoring
AI enhances DEM by providing deep insights into user interactions and application performance. By analyzing this data, AI can identify performance bottlenecks and user experience issues, allowing organizations to address them proactively. This leads to improved user satisfaction and productivity.
Combined with edge computing solutions that allow systems to process data closer to its source, these tools will further improve team experiences by ensuring performance is optimized, minimizing latency, and reducing security risks at scale.
Optimized Zero Trust Architectures
The Zero Trust security model operates on the principle of “never trust, always verify.” AI complements this approach by continuously validating user identities and device statuses. By analyzing behavioral patterns, AI can detect anomalies that may indicate compromised credentials. Some tools can even track signs of malicious intent, allowing for proactive mitigation techniques.
This will become increasingly crucial in the years ahead as companies continue to embrace hybrid and remote working practices, leading to more distributed users and devices in a network.
Final Thoughts: The AI-Powered Networking Revolution
The integration of AI in SASE and SD-WAN is an important step forward for modern enterprises. AI isn’t just a novel concept anymore, it’s becoming increasingly essential to enhancing security, optimizing performance, and automating crucial operations.
With AI’s ability to predict threats, self-configure networks, and dynamically manage bandwidth, organizations are shifting from reactive to proactive network management.
Security is at the forefront of this transformation. AI-powered SASE solutions are redefining threat detection, Zero Trust enforcement, and real-time risk mitigation, ensuring that cyber threats are neutralized before they cause harm. Meanwhile, in SD-WAN, AI is enabling predictive maintenance, dynamic path selection, and automated troubleshooting, keeping networks agile and resilient.
The question is, how do you take advantage of the power of AI networks and intelligent SASE and SDWAN solutions? How do you choose a vendor you can trust to help you navigate this landscape, keep costs low, and achieve your business goals?
SaaSCom is here to help, with expert consulting services, unique resources to help guide you through the vendor selection process, and objective support, we can help you unlock the power of AI networks. Plus, thanks to our partnerships with leading carbon offsetting programs, we can help you digitally transform, while keeping your carbon footprint low.
Take a sustainable approach to the new era of AI networks, with SaaSCom. Contact our team today.
