Netskope targets AI-driven network bottlenecks with AI Fast Path

Netskope has updated its NewEdge private cloud with AI Fast Path, a new solution announced this week that allows enterprises to reduce latency for AI applications while maintaining security controls. As enterprise companies continue to adopt generative AI tools, security teams are grappling with how to enforce AI governance controls without causing end users to bypass security, according to Netskope. “AI apps are sending tons of traffic and exchanging lots of data,” says Robert Arandjelovic, product and solutions marketing lead at Netskope. “There’s a natural latency there. If security adds more on top of that, users will try to work around it.” AI Fast Path focuses on optimizing traffic flows between enterprise users, the Netskope cloud, and major AI providers. Netskope says more than 90% of its 120 NewEdge data centers can now connect to leading AI applications in less than five milliseconds from the Netskope cloud, an effort aimed at minimizing added delay as traffic is inspected for data loss prevention (DLP), threat protection, and policy enforcement. “Customers realized that if they don’t adopt these AI apps, they’re probably going to be extinct in a few years. At the same time, we can’t afford to compromise on security,” Arandjelovic says. “So, with NewEdge and the AI Fast Path, we’ve created a super-optimized path where there is literally barely a bump in the wire. At the same time, they are not compromising security, because you’re passing through our cloud and getting all the benefits of our data protection and threat protection.” As a set of capabilities within NewEdge, AI Fast Path enables better performance and efficiency for AI applications. According to Netskope, AI Fast Path provides enterprises with: * Faster inference results for enterprise users from prompt to response, minimizing “time-to-first-token” (TTFT) for conversational AI. * Agentic AI optimization by accelerating complex, multi-prompt agentic workflows with the high-speed processing required for rapid, iterative AI subtasks. * Optimization of Large Language Model (LLM) performance when accessing large volumes of distributed data (for example, via Model Context Protocol gateways). * Support for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) by accelerating the connectivity between LLMs and external data sources for real-time outputs. NewEdge is Netskope’s privately built global network that carries customer traffic through more than 120 data centers worldwide before it reaches cloud and AI services. It’s a foundational part of the Netskope One secure access service edge (SASE) product. When a customer deploys Netskope, an agent on the user’s device automatically routes their web, SaaS, private app, and AI traffic into the Netskope cloud. AI Fast Path optimizations give AI workloads a direct, low-latency route to services such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude, due in part to Netskope expanding peering relationships from 10,000 to 11,000. The AI Fast Path capabilities are included as part of the NewEdge infrastructure and available to existing customers without additional licensing, the company says.