Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) has acquired Virtue AI, an artificial intelligence security company focused on runtime protection, automated validation and security for autonomous AI systems, as the cybersecurity company expands its strategy for protecting enterprise AI deployments.
The acquisition is intended to strengthen Fortinet’s AI-native Security Fabric by adding continuous validation and runtime protection across the AI lifecycle. Financial terms were not disclosed, although Fortinet said the consideration paid was immaterial to its business.
The deal comes as companies deploy large language models, AI applications and autonomous agents across enterprise environments, expanding the potential attack surface beyond conventional networks, endpoints and cloud infrastructure. AI-specific risks can also involve prompts, models, agents, Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools, application programming interface (API) calls and underlying AI infrastructure.
Fortinet said Virtue AI’s technology will extend its existing AI security capabilities from model protection to AI applications and agentic systems, covering development, testing and production environments.
Virtue AI’s platform includes capabilities for automated red-teaming, agent protection, governance, continuous validation and real-time guardrails. Its Guardian Agent technology can test autonomous AI systems across more than 50 sandboxed environments and 14 high-stakes domains, including simulated prompt-injection and MCP-based attacks against major agent frameworks.
The platform also provides visibility into AI agents and tools operating within an organization. It can identify unsanctioned AI applications, scan MCP tools and source code for security risks, monitor agent behavior and block potentially malicious tool calls before they are executed.
Another component of the technology is continuous AI validation. Virtue AI can assess risks following model updates and policy fine-tuning, while producing evidence intended to support security and compliance reviews. Fortinet said the automated testing covers hundreds of attack vectors and more than 1,000 risk categories, with multimodal testing and reporting capabilities.
The platform’s real-time guardrails can apply policies across text, images, video, audio and AI-generated code. These controls are designed to prevent harmful content, sensitive data exposure, jailbreak attempts and vulnerable code from reaching users or downstream systems.
“AI is fundamentally changing enterprise computing, and security must evolve just as quickly,” said Ken Xie, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Fortinet. He said Virtue AI’s technology would support Fortinet’s goal of providing continuous assurance and protection for AI systems throughout their lifecycle.
The acquisition builds on Fortinet’s existing AI security portfolio. Earlier this year, the company introduced FortiAIGate, designed to protect large language models against threats including prompt injection, data leakage, model poisoning and excessive resource consumption.
Fortinet said Virtue AI will complement FortiAIGate by extending protection to AI agents, applications and models while adding automated validation and runtime controls. The company plans to combine those capabilities with coordinated enforcement across its security platform and threat intelligence from FortiGuard Labs.
The move reflects a broader shift in cybersecurity as organizations increasingly adopt autonomous AI systems. Unlike conventional applications, AI agents can interpret instructions, access tools and take actions with limited human intervention, creating new security and governance challenges.
Gartner estimates the market for securing AI ecosystems and AI agents will grow from $2.8 billion in 2026 to $16.4 billion by 2030, highlighting the expected expansion of security requirements around enterprise AI.
Fortinet said its customers already use its AI-native Security Fabric to protect networks, endpoints, cloud environments, applications and AI deployments. The Virtue AI acquisition is intended to add another layer of continuous assessment and runtime protection as enterprises move AI systems from experimentation into production.
The transaction has closed, according to Fortinet. The company did not disclose additional financial details.
