Proofpoint’s New Agentic AI Cybersecurity Solutions Address 4 Key Challenges

This article was originally published on TechRepublic.

Proofpoint just announced new tools that are designed to secure the agentic workspace, where people and AI agents collaborate side by side. The cybersecurity and compliance company made the announcement during this week’s Proofpoint Protect 2025 conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

In the event’s keynote, Proofpoint CEO Sumit Dhawan explained that, while AI agents and assistants help people boost productivity, they also expand the attack surface as they embed in workflows, automate tasks, and perform analysis. Like people, AI agents can be tricked, misled, or compromised by cybercriminals using social engineering tactics.

“Protecting the agentic workspace is the next evolution of human-centric security, extending beyond people to safeguard AI agents and the points where they collaborate and share data,” said Dhawan.

He added that the new cybersecurity capabilities from Proofpoint address four challenges:

• Protecting AI assistants from targeted attacks.
• Preventing data loss by people and agents.
• Governing the actions of generative AI (GenAI) and AI agents.
• Using AI agents to automate collaboration and data security for security professionals.

Accordingly, the company announced a raft of new tools to protect these areas.  

Detecting and preventing AI exploits over email

Attackers have learned to embed malicious prompts in email to manipulate AI assistants such as Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini. By injecting prompts, malicious information is served to the user, AI-based defenses can be confused, and sensitive data can be exfiltrated. The Proofpoint Prime Threat Protection solution now blocks these exploits before they reach inboxes. 

“Every email is a prompt, whether you want it to be or not,” said Ryan Kalember, chief strategy officer, Proofpoint.

Here’s an overview of additional new Proofpoint solutions.

Proofpoint Data Security Complete

Proofpoint Data Security Complete enables organizations to locate their sensitive data, classify it correctly, control who has access to it, and monitor how people interact with it across endpoints, email, the web and the cloud. It provides discovery and classification through Autonomous Custom Classifiers for accurate data classification with minimal human input, as well as one-click remediation. 

A consolidated data risk map includes cross-channel data lineage and the identification of configuration, access, and exfiltration risks. It integrates with other Proofpoint cybersecurity products. 

Proofpoint AI Data Governance

Proofpoint AI Data Governance enables organizations to discover sanctioned and unsanctioned AI usage, apply prebuilt policies to prevent exfiltration and privacy violations, and govern access with automated workflows for security teams and content owners.

Kalember gave the example of data inside corporate databases. Previously, it was only available to a relatively small number of people. The presence of AI agents means that any data from that database could potentially be broadly available. Another important area for data governance is internal salary, bonus, and HR data, added Kalember. Employees have the ability now to use AI to discover that data if it is not properly governed and secured.

Proofpoint Secure Agent Gateway

To secure the AI agents that can now access data and conversations, Proofpoint Secure Agent Gateway adds controls to determine which agents can access what kinds of data while monitoring all agent activity, enforcing policy, and blocking or redacting sensitive data.

“Agents within organizations can blow up privacy within any enterprise,” said Kalember.

Proofpoint Satori Agents

Proofpoint Satori Agents operate within other Proofpoint solutions to triage data loss prevention alerts, recommend phishing simulations, and resolve user-reported email threats. This allows security teams managing Proofpoint solutions to streamline and scale their operations and eliminate repetitive tasks. It also includes features that work across other agents such as CrowdStrike Charlotte and Microsoft Copilot to enhance collaboration across other platforms. 

Dhawan added that there are currently three Satori agents: a phishing simulation agent, an abuse mailbox agent and a data loss prevention (DLP) triage agent. More agents are scheduled, and the company is talking to customers to prioritize needs.

Gradual rollout of these Proofpoint products

According to Kalember, these tools and additions to the Proofpoint lineup will be rolled out over the coming months. AI exploit detection over email should arrive in Q4 2025. Proofpoint Data Security Complete is now available with new features being added over the next two quarters. Proofpoint Secure Agent Gateway and Proofpoint Satori Agents will enter phased availability beginning in 2026.