04 — Product · PR-790
Cisco AI Defense
A security product for AI applications and agents that finds the models, agents and MCP servers in use, attacks them in automated tests before release, scans model files and AI components for tampering, and inspects prompts, responses and tool calls at run time. Runs across the major clouds and on-premises.
// FIG. 04 · Capability coverage
Each tile is an L1; the bar is how many of this product's capabilities realize something beneath it. Our judgment, not a vendor claim.
Direct & Govern
Finance
People & Workplace
Customer & Market
Products & Services
Operations & Supply
Technology & Data
Resilience & Responsibility
Industry L1s
- Plant Operations0
- Production Planning & Scheduling0
- Manufacturing Quality & Compliance0
- Industrial Engineering & Continuous Improvement0
- Plant & Process Safety0
- Dealer & Distributor Network0
- Aftermarket & Service Parts0
- Platform Engineering0
- Software Product Release0
- Site Reliability0
- Developer Experience & API Ecosystem0
- Subscription & Tenant Operations0
- Product Analytics & Experimentation0
- Trust & Compliance Assurance0
- Open Source & Community0
- Merchandising & Assortment0
- Store Operations0
- E-commerce & Omnichannel0
- Category & Trade Promotion0
- Loss Prevention0
- Consumer Insights0
- Store Network & Real Estate0
- Returns & Reverse Logistics0
- Network Planning & Engineering0
- Network Build & Field Operations0
- Network Operations & Assurance0
- Subscriber Order & Activation0
- Usage Charging & Subscriber Billing0
- Content & Programming0
- Advertising Sales & Operations0
- Communications Regulatory Obligations0
- Network Planning & Investment0
- Network Construction & Field Work0
- Network Operations & Control0
- Generation & Treatment Operations0
- Metering & Meter Data0
- Utility Customer Service & Billing0
- Energy Supply, Markets & Flexibility0
- Utility Regulation & Resilience0
- Transmission System Operations0
- Water & Wastewater Networks0
- Deposits & Accounts0
- Lending & Credit0
- Payments & Cards0
- Insurance Products & Policy0
- Insurance Claims0
- Wealth & Investment Management0
- Financial Crime0
- Prudential Risk & Regulatory Reporting0
- Patient Access0
- Clinical Care Delivery0
- Clinical Support Services0
- Revenue Cycle0
- Quality & Patient Safety0
- Population Health0
- Health Plan Operations0
- Health Information0
- Post-Acute & Home-Based Care0
The product at the base, its capabilities in the middle (taller = more mature), and the L1s they land under on top (taller = more of them). Our judgment, not a vendor claim.
- Top · Lands under
- L1AI & Automation · 8
- L2Cybersecurity · 8
- Middle · Product capabilities
- P1AI Inventory · strong
- P2AI Model and Application Validation · core
- P3AI Runtime Protection · core
- P4AI Supply Chain Risk Management · strong
- P5Agent Runtime Guardrails · emerging
- P6AI BOM · emerging
- P7MCP Catalog · emerging
- Base · Product
- Cisco AI Defense · Cisco Systems, Inc.
Product capabilities · 7
How to read maturity and confidence
Maturity · how much it covers
- core
- What the product is built around; the capability is covered end to end.
- strong
- Covered well, with a few gaps a buyer would notice.
- partial
- Covers part of the capability; expect to pair it with something else.
- emerging
- New or thin; on the roadmap more than in the product.
Confidence · how well it is evidenced
- Evidence confidence: high
- The vendor's own documentation describes this module doing it.
- Evidence confidence: medium
- Documented, but how far it reaches into the capability is our reading.
- Evidence confidence: low
- Our judgment; we found no public page that confirms it.
- PC-790.10
AI Inventory
Evidence confidence: highMaturity: strongFinds models and agents running in cloud AI services such as Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex and Azure AI Foundry.
Vendor page: cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/ai-defense/ai-defense-ds.html ↗ - PC-790.20
AI Model and Application Validation
Evidence confidence: highMaturity: coreAutomated attack runs against models and applications across a broad threat taxonomy, with findings mapped to public AI security frameworks and suggested guardrails for each model.
- BC-760.50.20Application Security Testing
- BC-770.10.30AI Risk & Model Review
- BC-770.30.40Output Evaluation & Guardrails
- PC-790.30
AI Runtime Protection
Evidence confidence: highMaturity: coreChecks prompts and responses as they pass and stops prompt injection, leaks of sensitive data and unsafe content.
Vendor page: cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/ai-defense/ai-defense-ds.html ↗ - PC-790.40
AI Supply Chain Risk Management
Evidence confidence: highMaturity: strongChecks models, the repositories they come from and MCP servers for concealed threats before developers adopt them.
Vendor page: cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/ai-defense/ai-defense-ds.html ↗ - PC-790.50
Agent Runtime Guardrails
Evidence confidence: mediumMaturity: emergingWatches agent interactions and MCP traffic live, enforces allowed and blocked tools, and stops tool misuse, poisoned tools and attempts to gain more privilege.
- BC-760.50.50AI Runtime Protection
- BC-770.30.30Agent Orchestration
- BC-770.50.50Model & Tool Access Brokering
- PC-790.60
AI BOM
Evidence confidence: mediumMaturity: emergingA single bill of materials for the AI estate that lists MCP servers and outside dependencies, so AI supply chain risk can be governed.
Vendor page: newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2026/m02/cisco-redefines-security-for-the-agentic-era.html ↗ - PC-790.70
MCP Catalog
Evidence confidence: mediumMaturity: emergingA list of the MCP servers and registries an organization depends on, public or private, with the risk of each kept up to date.
Vendor page: newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2026/m02/cisco-redefines-security-for-the-agentic-era.html ↗
Sources · checked
The public vendor documentation this mapping is based on. Maturity and confidence are our judgment, not the vendor's claim.
- Cisco AI Defense Data Sheet - Cisco www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/ai-defense/ai-defense-ds.html
- Cisco AI Defense Solution Overview - Cisco www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/ai-defense/ai-defense-so.html
- Cisco Redefines Security for the Agentic Era with AI Defense Expansion and AI-Aware SASE newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2026/m02/cisco-redefines-security-for-the-agentic-era.html