LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Oct. 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Uniti Solutions, the leading provider of telecom infrastructure solutions, has launched an "AI Security" offering, powered by Cato Networks, to help business customers combat a new landscape of cyber risks created internally by unsecured employee AI use.

AI is rapidly becoming part of everyday business operations, but much of its use remains difficult for organizations to govern. OpenAI reports that more than 2 million* business customers now use its tools, while Microsoft and LinkedIn found that 78%** of AI users bring their own AI tools to work.

While AI use creates opportunities for innovation and efficiency, it can also introduce new security threats that organizations cannot afford to ignore. This includes the practice of "Shadow AI," which is the use of AI applications, models, or agents that have not been approved or governed by their organization’s IT and security teams. Unsecured activity can lead to employees leaking company data, as well as AI tools inadvertently exposing sensitive company information such as intellectual property (IP), source code, financial records, and customer information.

"Shadow AI is becoming one of the largest unmanaged risks in the modern enterprise. It’s already happening at scale, spreading faster than most IT teams can identify; it leads to new blind spots that traditional cybersecurity solutions can’t solve for," said Mike Flannery, president of Uniti Solutions. "We’re committed to helping our customers stay ahead of today’s threats and tomorrow’s challenges. With Cato AI Security, we’re giving businesses access to advanced protection to help them embrace AI with greater confidence while strengthening their overall security posture."

AI Security is designed to protect and govern AI interactions, from third-party AI usage and homegrown AI applications to autonomous agents. Cato’s cloud-native solution offers one platform with the complete range of functionality, so businesses can secure the AI they use, protect the AI applications they build, and control their AI agents operating across their network.

AI Security differs from traditional firewalls as it offers visibility into employee AI usage, oversees hundreds of AI tools, understands and inspects prompts and response entered into these tools, enforces real-time guardrails, and identifies and isolates data leaks. For Uniti customers, the service provides visibility into sanctioned and unsanctioned AI usage and enables security teams to apply real-time controls to AI interactions.

Capabilities include:

Discover Shadow AI functions: The tool can automatically inventory every sanctioned and unsanctioned AI app, model, and agent in use across all users and sites, internally.
Analyze prompts: The tool can read the intent of prompts, responses, and actions in real time to catch sensitive data and risky behavior, beyond keywords.
Enforce real-time guardrails: The tool can block misuse and redact sensitive data inline, so employees keep working and the organization’s data stays where it belongs.

To keep up with AI's rapid advancements, AI Security offers businesses a way to reduce the risk of data exposure, improve their compliance posture, protect user IP, and encourage more responsible AI adoption among employees.

"AI adoption is expanding the enterprise attack surface and organizations cannot afford to let security lag behind," said Lior Cohen, vice president, product management, Security and AI at Cato Networks. "Securing AI requires visibility into how agents and applications access and use enterprise data, control over AI usage, and defenses against AI-targeted threats and data exfiltration. These capabilities are essential to protecting sensitive information, reducing risk, and meeting evolving compliance requirements. Cato AI Security delivers the visibility, control, and protection organizations need today to adopt AI at scale with confidence and strengthen their defenses as threats evolve."

AI Security is being offered as an add-on service for Uniti Solutions customers who use its Managed Secure Access Service Edge (MSASE) service, powered by the Cato SASE Platform.

Uniti Solutions was just named an "Advanced Partner" by Cato, joining fewer than 2% of Cato’s global partners to achieve this designation. Find more information on Uniti Solutions and AI Security here.

About Uniti Solutions

Uniti Solutions, a business unit of Uniti (NASDAQ:UNIT), delivers customized, cloud-enabled connectivity, communications and a full suite of managed connectivity, collaboration, and network security solutions reaching nearly 95% of business, state and local government and education customer locations in the U.S. Additional information about Uniti Solutions is available at solutions.uniti.com. Engage with us on LinkedIn.

Media Contact:

Megan Krtek

uniti.kinetic.pr@uniti.com

* https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/7ef17d82-96bf-4dd1-9df2-228f7f377a29/the-state-of-enterprise-ai_2025-report.pdf

**https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/ai-at-work-is-here-now-comes-the-hard-part