Check Point named Gartner leader in hybrid mesh firewall

Check Point has been named a Leader in Gartner's 2026 Magic Quadrant for Hybrid Mesh Firewall, as the cybersecurity company expands its hybrid mesh network security strategy.

The recognition comes as Check Point pushes further into AI-related network security, including with its AI Network Firewall. According to the company, the product allows organisations to secure AI use through existing physical firewall infrastructure rather than adding separate systems.

Hybrid mesh firewall has become a closely watched segment as companies seek consistent security controls across on-premise networks, cloud environments, remote users, and a growing number of connected applications. The category reflects how large organisations now run technology estates that extend far beyond a single data centre perimeter.

Check Point is using the Gartner ranking to reinforce its argument that AI adoption is changing the demands on corporate security teams. Based on figures from its own research, the company says AI-assisted intrusions are becoming more common and the time available to respond to newly exploited vulnerabilities has narrowed sharply.

At the same time, businesses are expanding their use of AI applications, autonomous agents, workforce AI tools, and dedicated AI infrastructure. In its 2026 cloud security research, Check Point found that only 5% of organisations have full visibility into AI tool usage across their operations.

That visibility gap is becoming a central concern for security vendors as companies let staff and developers experiment with generative AI services, deploy internal AI agents, and build new systems around GPU-based computing clusters. In practice, this expands the attack surface and increases pressure on network, cloud, and endpoint controls to work together.

AI security push

Check Point said its approach focuses on using the network layer to apply policy and protection consistently across users, applications, AI workloads, and infrastructure. It also pointed to unified management and threat intelligence as part of that model, alongside what it described as AI-driven orchestration for policy, compliance, and security operations.

One part of that strategy is delivering AI security through existing firewalls. Check Point said this lets organisations extend controls over AI usage without deploying additional infrastructure, likely aimed at customers trying to limit cost and operational complexity while responding to new risks.

The company also highlighted security for AI data centres and so-called neocloud environments developed in collaboration with NVIDIA. Those deployments are becoming increasingly relevant as enterprises and service providers build dedicated infrastructure to train and run AI models, often with significant demands around segmentation, perimeter defence, and workload protection.

Jonathan Zanger, Chief Technology Officer at Check Point Software Technologies, linked the Gartner ranking to the broader shift in enterprise architecture.

"Enterprise security has reached a turning point," said Jonathan Zanger, Chief Technology Officer at Check Point Software Technologies. "AI is transforming how organisations operate and multiplying the environments they have to defend, from applications and agents to entirely new infrastructure. We believe our recognition as a Leader reflects a platform built for exactly that: Hybrid Mesh Network Security, which keeps protection consistent from the enterprise edge to the AI data centre, now managed with agentic orchestration."

Customer example

Check Point also cited Dropbox as a customer using its AI Agent Security product after assessing other suppliers and internal options. The example is intended to show how AI-specific controls are becoming part of mainstream security buying decisions rather than a specialist add-on.

"After evaluating several AI security vendors and internal options, Check Point AI Agent Security quickly stood out in terms of its operational performance and ultra-low latency," said Adrian Wood, Security Engineer at Dropbox. "Check Point's AI Agent Security has given us the security foundation we need to scale GenAI confidently across our product lines. As we continue expanding our AI capabilities, we know we have centralised protection that won't become a bottleneck."

The latest Gartner recognition adds to the competitive positioning battle among security providers seeking to define how firewall technology evolves in a market shaped by cloud migration and AI adoption. Traditional network security products have had to adapt as inspection, policy enforcement, and threat prevention move across distributed environments rather than sitting solely at the corporate edge.

For vendors such as Check Point, that means proving they can tie together physical appliances, virtual firewalls, cloud-native controls, and centralised management, while also meeting the new security demands created by AI tools and infrastructure. The company says it protects more than 100,000 organisations worldwide.

Its argument is that enterprises adopting AI need security that can scale with that use while remaining centrally managed. The Gartner ranking gives Check Point an external label to support that pitch in a market where buyers are weighing whether existing security architecture can keep up with rapid changes in how AI is used across the business.