Netskope launches NewEdge AI Fast Path to cut latency

Netskope has added network path optimisation features to its NewEdge infrastructure aimed at improving performance for business traffic to widely used AI services and platforms.

The product, NewEdge AI Fast Path, is available to existing Netskope customers. It is designed to improve routing between corporate users and AI applications hosted across public cloud, private cloud and "neo-cloud" environments.

Netskope frames the launch as a response to concerns among IT leaders about the strain AI usage places on network performance and security controls. It cited a recent survey in which 18% of infrastructure and operations leaders said they feel completely confident that their teams and budgets can meet rising demands for performance, resilience and security tied to AI adoption.

The company says organisations often face trade-offs between security inspection and user experience when staff access AI services. In some environments, that tension can lead to slower connections, gaps in inspection or workarounds that bypass controls.

Focus on latency

AI Fast Path emphasises reducing end-to-end latency for common AI workflows. Netskope highlights "time-to-first-token" as a key metric for conversational AI, measuring the delay between a user prompt and the start of a model's response.

Netskope also points to optimisation for agentic AI workflows, in which a system makes a sequence of requests to carry out multi-step tasks. These patterns can increase the number of network round trips between an enterprise and external AI services.

Other focus areas include performance when large language models access distributed data and when organisations use retrieval-augmented generation. In these setups, a model queries external sources and incorporates the results into outputs, making connectivity between models and data stores more critical.

Network mechanics

The approach is tied to how the NewEdge network is built and how it connects to major internet destinations. Netskope runs its own data centre footprint, which serves as the delivery layer for services in its Netskope One platform, including security and connectivity products.

NewEdge spans more than 120 data centres across more than 75 regions, according to Netskope. Each location runs a full set of edge services, allowing traffic to enter the NewEdge fabric closer to users and sites.

A key element of AI Fast Path is peering and interconnection that brings NewEdge closer to large cloud and AI service providers. Netskope says NewEdge has more than 11,000 network adjacencies and connects to more than 750 unique autonomous system numbers, with more than 1,000 new adjacencies added over the past 12 months.

These connections cover common AI destinations and underlying cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic and OpenAI, according to Netskope.

Netskope also uses a routing system it calls NewEdge Route Control. It says the system draws on telemetry from network and application monitoring and makes tens of thousands of route changes each day to find faster paths to AI destinations and route around congestion and provider connectivity issues.

Security and routing

Netskope says the architecture is designed to avoid forcing a choice between inspection and speed. It also highlights service level agreements covering availability, traffic processing and security efficacy.

AI Fast Path sits alongside Netskope's other security and connectivity offerings, including Security Service Edge and Secure Access Service Edge products and AI security controls. Netskope markets the platform to security and networking teams managing access to SaaS, web, private applications and AI services.

In a statement, Joe DePalo, Netskope's chief platform officer, linked the product to shifting user expectations.

"With organisations moving at AI speed, any trade-off between security and performance is unacceptable, and also unnecessary," DePalo said. "Netskope is recognised as a market leader for how we combine security strengths with network performance at the level of, and in some cases even improved over, direct-to-net for virtually any user on the path. That includes optimising the user experience for business-critical AI. We're pleased to help customers meet their need for AI speed without adding unnecessary risks."

Netskope has published additional detail about the NewEdge AI Fast Path announcement here.

They will continue expanding its NewEdge footprint and interconnection coverage as demand grows for managed access to external AI services and as enterprises increase production use of AI across departments and workflows.