Introducing AI Security

Use this topic to understand what AI Security is, what problems it solves, and what you can do with it before you begin setup.

Why AI Security matters

As AI tools become part of everyday work, they introduce new risks:

• Sensitive data can leak through prompts and file uploads.
• Security teams lose visibility into which AI tools are in use.
• Autonomous agents can take actions on your organization's behalf without oversight.

AI Security addresses these risks from a single platform. It helps you prevent sensitive data leaks, eliminate AI blind spots, and govern autonomous actions.

How AI Security protects your data

AI Security works in three layers.

Know

AI Security builds a picture of how AI is used across your organization: which applications your people use, which agents are running, and what data is involved.

Adapt

Your existing data protection policies extend to AI activity. You do not rebuild policies or reclassify data to cover AI.

Protect

AI Security acts at the point of interaction rather than after exposure. It allows safe AI use while preventing sensitive data from leaving your organization.

Where AI Security fits

AI Security is part of the Forcepoint Data Security Cloud Platform. It does not replace your existing data security. It extends it to cover AI.

This matters in practice for two reasons:

• The classifications and policies that already protect your email, web, and endpoint activity apply to AI activity too.
• Several AI Security capabilities depend on other products in the platform. For example, Shadow AI visibility draws on Forcepoint Cloud Web Security or on supported endpoint agents.

The following table lists the requirements for AI Security.

Table 1. AI Security requirements

What AI Security does for you

AI Security helps you take control of how AI tools and agents are used across your organization. More employees use tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude. AI agents also access business data through applications like Salesforce and Atlassian. As a result, sensitive data can move in ways that are difficult to track or control. AI Security gives you the visibility, policy enforcement, and intelligent guidance to manage this risk.

AI Security is built on the Forcepoint Data Security Cloud platform: Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), Cloud Security Gateway (CSG), and Data Security Everywhere (DSE). It extends your existing data security policies to AI channels.

With AI Security you can:

• Connect and monitor sanctioned AI apps. See who is using which AI tools, how often, and what data is involved. The dashboard shows users, agents, interactions, and DLP violations for each connected app.

Table 2. AI DR for sanctioned AI apps

• Uncover Shadow AI. Shadow AI activity is reported from two sources. The endpoint agent reports AI applications and locally running agents on your users' devices. Forcepoint Cloud Web Security reports AI sites your users visit. You can use either source or both. What appears on the dashboard depends on which sources you have in place.

Table 3. Shadow AI availability by customer type

• Protect sensitive data. Apply DLP policies that detect and act on sensitive content moving through AI tools. The Sensitive Data Exposure tab shows violations by classification and by AI tool, and highlights the most critical events.

Table 4. Remediation actions

• Measure policy effectiveness. The Policy Effectiveness tab shows how your DLP and access control policies are performing, which policies generate the most hits, and where users are affected.

• Govern AI agent traffic. Use the MCP Gateway to inspect and control what your AI agents can read from or write to business applications. The AI Landscape tab shows MCP Gateway connections alongside your sanctioned apps.

Table 5. MCP Gateway connectors and authentication

• Manage access policies. Create policies that allow, notify on, or deny specific agent or user activity.

Table 6. Access policy options

• Manage agents. Register AI agents, organize them into groups, and track their activity. The Agent Management screen shows registered agents, active tokens, revoked tokens, and calls made today.

Table 7. Agent registration options

• Get intelligent recommendations. ARIA, the Adaptive Risk Intelligence Assistant, guides you through setup, suggests policies, and surfaces risks as your environment evolves.

How AI Security is organized

AI Security is built around three pillars:

• AI Detection and Response (Sanctioned AI Governance): Monitor and control usage of approved AI applications like Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude.
• AI Agent Gateway (Agentic AI Governance): Govern the tools and data that autonomous AI agents can access through the MCP Gateway.
• Shadow AI Discovery and Control (Unsanctioned AI Governance): Discover and control use of unsanctioned AI applications and websites across your organization.

You manage all three pillars from the AI Governance Dashboard. The following table describes its views.

Table 8. AI Governance Dashboard views

Getting help while you work

ARIA is an assistant built into the platform. ARIA is available from your first sign-in. You do not configure or enable it.

Your AI Security journey

Journey 1: Connect and monitor AI apps

1. Open the AI Governance Dashboard.
2. In the Configure AI Security dialog, choose a setup option.

Table 9. Setup options

Both paths lead to the AI Governance Dashboard, where you can monitor AI Landscape, Sensitive Data Exposure, and Policy Effectiveness.

Journey 2: Govern AI agent traffic (MCP Gateway)

After you complete your AI apps setup, the What's Next cards on the finish screen guide you to configure the MCP Gateway. You can also open it at any time through Connector > Gateway Connectors. To govern agent traffic:

1. Add a gateway connector: Atlassian, Microsoft 365, or Salesforce.
2. Go to Admin > Agent Management to register your agents.
3. On the Agent Management page, create your agent groups.
4. Go to AI Security > Policy to create your access control policies.
5. Set the priority order of your access control policies.
6. Monitor agent activity, tool calls, and DLP violations on the MCP Gateway dashboard.

Supported documentation

Use the following guides to deploy and configure Forcepoint DLP with AI Security.