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Cortex Agentic Endpoint Security vs. CrowdStrike Guardian
Secure the agentic endpoint with total visibility and real-time control.
CrowdStrike Guardian
Low visibility and remains blind to the agentic frontier
- Limited breadth of agentic tools and AI artifact coverage
- Dependent on manual stitching of data, with high deployment friction
- Incomplete protection depending on agent configuration
- Relies on reactive, post-incident threat scores while AES stops the incident before it happens
Why Palo Alto Networks
AI-native total visibility
Cortex® AES delivers a continuous, real-time inventory of every AI artifact across the endpoint, paired with session-level tracking of user prompts, agent behaviors, file access, LLM models and tool executions. Complete asset visibility, paired with full context, helps eliminate dangerous blind spots and enables enterprises to safely accelerate AI adoption.
188K
Unique agentic items identified
CrowdStrike Guardian
Leaves you searching for context
- Limited preexecution, contextual, AI-native risk analysis
- Requires multiple tools and separate CrowdStrike licenses for complete AIDR coverage
- Reactive and fragile, with primary focus on postbreach detections and reporting
Why Palo Alto Networks
Contex-aware risk
Cortex AES delivers actionable protection over agent behavior through continuous risk analysis of AI assets and live agent sessions. Each agent instance has full telemetry into all AI assets, the model it uses, agent configurations and tool permissions. Protect the agentic device, not with postbreach posture alone, but with continuous control over how agents behave.
23K
Remediated threats
CrowdStrike Guardian
The guardian without guardrails
- CrowdStrike Guardian is a control tool, with all the friction and limited in usability
- CrowdStrike applies enforcement actions after a breach occurs
- Zero-touch security? CrowdStrike scores a flat zero. Stop wasting time on manual deployments and forced developer opt-ins
Why Palo Alto Networks
Proactive Governance and Control
Cortex AES proactively governs which packages, extensions, agents, and AI artifacts enter your environment with custom policies and guardrails. These controls deliver seamless protection and continuously monitor AI behavior at runtime, immediately intercepting risky agent behavior as it occurs.
645K
Side by side, there’s no comparison
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|---|---|---|
AI-Native Total Visibility | Risk intelligence on the full supply chain Complete agentic context with real-time enforcement to secure all elements of the agentic endpoint. | No preexecution native risk scoring CrowdStrike relies on post-breach detections and not every AI artifact has version-specific risk context. |
Proactive Governance and Control | Policy-driven AI guardrails Control the AI ecosystem through policy-driven guardrails, blocking risky components at the point of entry and continuously monitoring them as conditions change. | Governance that acts too late Reactive detection and response that enforces after a threat has been flagged. |
Real-Time Prevention | Preexecution enforcement Block risky agent behavior before execution or software before installation, with zero latency. | Limited runtime controls and marketplace risk Lack of inline enforcement and inconsistent across agentic endpoints and artifacts. |
Secure Every Agent | Verified agents, controlled access Know which agent is acting and decide what it can reach, from data and tools to MCP servers, with Prisma® AIRS™. | Spotty enforcement dependent on setup Coverage changes with each integration and some only watch instead of block. |
Govern AI Usage | The control plane for the AI enterprise See who uses which AI and what it costs, and enforce policy across every interaction with Prisma AIRS. | No AI gateway A centralized gateway for AI and MCP traffic is not available. |
Seamless Configuration | Easy deployment and zero developer friction Balance security and productivity from day one, with zero workflow disruption blind spots. | Requires manual wrappers with local proxies Security shouldn’t be an arts and crafts project stitching together manual configuration, activity logs and MCP wrappers. |
Protection and Platform Support | Breadth and depth of visibility and enforcement Wherever your employees may work, Cortex AES protects across all environments. | Lack of maturity across OS environments and browser protection Fails to support macOS and Linux for network-level AI inspection, with limited browser enforcement only for managed Chrome and Edge. |
Why Palo Alto Networks
Energy: Cortex AES success
Deployment Outcomes
- Time savings for investigation.Reduced daily manual vetting from two hours to about 30 minutes, allowing the team to tackle more complex challenges, such as AI agent governance.
- Unified inventory of AI risks. Leadership sees immediate context behind AI risk, recommended mitigation, and inventory in one view.
- Visibility across the supply chain. Secured over 5,000 previously unmonitored assets, including browser extensions, AI tools, and code packages.
645k
Install attempts blocked directly by the platform
1 weekTo deploy across all endpoints
“Agentic AI presents tremendous opportunity for the enterprise, yet they create a new attack surface that traditional security tools were not built to detect. These agents operate with access to critical systems and sensitive data, creating the ultimate insider threat. With [Cortex AES] we are delivering the only solution I've seen to secure vibe coding and agentic AI at the endpoint, so our customers don't have to choose between innovation and security.”
“The first time we ran Koi, we uncovered an entire landscape of marketplaces and risks we didn't even know existed. We’ve moved from total blind spots to complete visibility and enforcement.”
“Marketplace governance is what sold me. Being able to write policy across browser and IDE extensions instead of just blocking known-bad ones, and having that in the same place as package and model visibility — that's the win for us.”
75%Reduction in manual vetting
“Koi Agentic Endpoint Security is one of my favorite tools because it gives me visibility and governance into areas I didn't have before — the marketplaces, extensions, and packages my people pull from every day.”
129AI risks remediated
“Previously, we had zero visibility, zero classification for AI, marketplaces, and packages. We couldn’t do any cooldown protection. Now Koi Agentic Endpoint Security does all that for me—quickly and easily.”
1 weekTo deploy across all endpoints
“Agentic AI presents tremendous opportunity for the enterprise, yet they create a new attack surface that traditional security tools were not built to detect. These agents operate with access to critical systems and sensitive data, creating the ultimate insider threat. With [Cortex AES] we are delivering the only solution I've seen to secure vibe coding and agentic AI at the endpoint, so our customers don't have to choose between innovation and security.”
“The first time we ran Koi, we uncovered an entire landscape of marketplaces and risks we didn't even know existed. We’ve moved from total blind spots to complete visibility and enforcement.”
“Marketplace governance is what sold me. Being able to write policy across browser and IDE extensions instead of just blocking known-bad ones, and having that in the same place as package and model visibility — that's the win for us.”
75%Reduction in manual vetting
“Koi Agentic Endpoint Security is one of my favorite tools because it gives me visibility and governance into areas I didn't have before — the marketplaces, extensions, and packages my people pull from every day.”
129AI risks remediated
“Previously, we had zero visibility, zero classification for AI, marketplaces, and packages. We couldn’t do any cooldown protection. Now Koi Agentic Endpoint Security does all that for me—quickly and easily.”
