Unified Security Approach Needed for Shadow AI Solutions

As employees experiment with generative AI tools, organizations face mounting compliance exposure, data leakage and regulatory penalties.

Mar. 30, 2026 at 8:25pm

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A highly detailed, glowing 3D macro illustration of a complex network of interconnected cybersecurity infrastructure elements, such as servers, firewalls, and data centers, all illuminated by neon cyan and magenta lights, conceptually representing a unified, intelligent security platform operating at machine speed to defend against shadow AI threats.A unified, intelligent security platform operating at machine speed to defend against the growing threat of shadow AI.NYC Today

Shadow AI is emerging as one of the most dangerous enterprise risk vectors, eclipsing the shadow IT problem that plagued the cloud era. Attackers operate at machine speed, while defenders are still constrained by human pace. The urgency is compounding as agentic AI security takes center stage and with the European Union's AI Act now enforcing fines of up to 35 million euros. Fortinet is unifying network and security operations into a single platform to provide visibility and control across both Fortinet and third-party environments.

Why it matters

The real-world consequences of ungoverned AI use are mounting, with cases of healthcare companies being fined for HIPAA violations and manufacturers losing millions due to proprietary data leaks. This underscores the need for a unified security approach to protect organizations from the risks of shadow AI.

The details

Fortinet is introducing more than 21 AI agents, Model Context Protocol support, and an agent fabric designed to provide visibility and control across both Fortinet and third-party environments. The three major pillars of this agentic AI security framework are: 1) the ability to identify and manage access, 2) an architecture to manage, deploy, and communicate with agents for access privileges, and 3) an agent fabric to keep everything connected and under control.

  • In 2026, the European Union's AI Act will enforce fines of up to 35 million euros for violations.
  • Last year, the average discovery timeline for an IT organization to detect and resolve a ransomware incident was 180 hours.

The players

Russ Schafer

Executive Vice President of Marketing at Fortinet Inc.

Fortinet Inc.

A cybersecurity company that is unifying network and security operations into a single platform to provide visibility and control across both Fortinet and third-party environments.

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What they’re saying

“It takes about four minutes to enact and deploy a ransomware incident. Last year, an average discovery timeline for an IT organization was 168 hours to discover that ransomware and then another 12 hours to resolve it. During that time — they call it dwell time — the attackers are basically going throughout the organization and gathering all the information they can to then give them maximum leverage when they actually make a ransomware request. By implementing agentic AI on a unified platform versus a fragmented, tool-based system that most people are using today, you'll be able to take that [resolution] timeline down to about 38 seconds.”

— Russ Schafer, Executive Vice President of Marketing

“The challenge is that most people don't know where the source is or where the information is going when they're using a public gen AI application. Part of our mission is to sort of protect people from themselves.”

— Russ Schafer, Executive Vice President of Marketing

What’s next

Fortinet plans to continue expanding its AI agent capabilities and agent fabric to provide even greater visibility and control over shadow AI use within organizations.

The takeaway

As the risks of shadow AI continue to grow, organizations need to adopt a unified security approach that combines access management, architectural controls, and an integrated agent fabric to protect against data leaks, compliance violations, and other threats at machine speed.