"The secure browser way of actually looking at things, right at the source of when a user is actually interacting with an application, is the right way," Mani Sundaram told ISMG.
Akamai's $205 million purchase of LayerX
Akamai has agreed to acquire LayerX, a Tel Aviv-based browser security startup, for $205 million, the companies announced. Akamai described the deal as a move to extend its security stack into the browser layer where employees increasingly interact with artificial intelligence tools and cloud applications. Akamai said the acquisition will complement its zero trust network architecture (ZTNA) and microsegmentation products, which today secure downstream access and workload communications.
LayerX's telemetry, team and funding
LayerX was founded in 2021, employs 109 people, and has raised $45 million across two funding rounds. Its latest financing was an $11 million Series A extension led by Jump Capital in April 2025. The company has been led since inception by Or Eshed, who previously spent 19 months as a threat intelligence analyst at Check Point Software and six years in the Israel Defence Forces focused on intel.
Why browsers are central to AI-era risk
Both Akamai and LayerX framed browsers as the strategic control point for emergent AI risks. Or Eshed told ISMG that browsers "have effectively become the central operating environment for AI interactions," noting that some 80% to 90% of user-to-agent activity now occurs inside browser environments. Mani Sundaram emphasized that browsers are where employees are "actively interacting with artificial intelligence tools and cloud apps," and that browser-based controls operate "pre decryption, and it doesn't break applications."
The companies argue that visibility at the browser can reveal authentication state, user activity patterns and risky actions taking place inside applications. LayerX positions its telemetry to detect not only human behavior but also the distinct activity patterns of AI agents — autonomous workflows that can create files, establish service accounts, interact with repositories and transfer data in ways that differ from predictable human behavior. Eshed warned that "an agent is treating data differently, is doing things differently, is very creative, sometimes in ways that are surprising or shocking."
How browser security complements ZTNA and microsegmentation
Akamai described a layered model: browser security governs the initial user interaction at the endpoint; ZTNA controls north-south access between users and applications; and microsegmentation protects east-west traffic among workloads, servers and databases. Sundaram said telemetry from the browser can feed Akamai's access control engine to make "more granular decisions about whether access should be allowed, restricted or terminated."
According to Akamai, combining these signals enables finer control over sessions — for example, by passing attributes such as what a user is doing in the browser to ZTNA policies that can then alter access decisions in real time.
Commercial strategy: standalone product, then tighter integration
Akamai plans to continue selling LayerX as a standalone product while building tighter integrations into its broader enterprise security platform. Over time, the company expects to bundle browser security, ZTNA, segmentation and AI governance into a unified security suite. Sundaram identified key success metrics: account penetration, annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth and increased adoption of bundled platform offerings.
What this means for CISOs, technologists, and procurement leaders
- CISOs: Akamai and LayerX say CISOs are worried about what employees upload to generative AI tools and how confidential enterprise data could be exposed. The acquisition promises additional telemetry and policy enforcement at the browser to address data-exfiltration and agent-driven workflows.
- Technologists and security teams: Browser telemetry that observes authentication state and in-app behavior can provide new contextual signals for access-control engines, potentially enabling more granular, session-aware enforcement without breaking applications.
- Procurement and platform buyers: Akamai's plan to keep LayerX standalone while pursuing tighter integrations signals a two-track go-to-market approach — immediate point-product availability with a long-term aim of bundling within a unified platform that ties browser controls to ZTNA and segmentation.
Akamai framed the move as positioning itself for "a post-AI world," with Sundaram saying, "AI is changing everything right now, and we really want to be one of the leaders in providing security in a post-AI world." The deal folds a specialized browser-telemetry capability into a vendor already selling ZTNA and microsegmentation, and ties commercial success to measurable adoption metrics such as ARR and account penetration.
What remains to be seen is how quickly Akamai will operationalize LayerX telemetry across its access-control engines and how rapidly enterprise customers will adopt bundled browser-plus-ZTNA controls to manage the novel risks of agentic AI workflows.
Original story: https://www.govinfosecurity.com/akamai-to-buy-layerx-for-205m-to-expand-ai-browser-security-a-31695
