Securing the AI Surge with Check Point's GenAI Protect
In this blog
The workforce has already moved on
When I was coming up in the world, I remember the thrill of discovering shortcuts that made the workflow faster and cleaner. Every team had those moments where we figured out something clever that shaved hours off a task. I also remember the opposite moments just as clearly, the ones where leadership introduced layers of controls that slowed everything down.
We dealt with seemingly overbearing web filters put in place that suddenly blocked a tool. We watched application control systems cut off access to websites or utilities that had been perfectly fine the day before. Inside the office, especially among the engineers, we had a name for this. We called it "tripping over nickels," the idea that they were making life harder in the name of saving a dollar somewhere else.
I won't go into the specifics of what we did back then in the name of productivity, but I can say this: we always found a way to get the job done. And as my career progressed, I developed a better appreciation for why those controls existed. Not all of them made sense, but many did. Today, the stakes are far higher than they were back when all we cared about was finding the best method to bypass a finicky local forward proxy. Data flows are global. Risks compound instantly. A single misstep is not just an inconvenience anymore; it can lead to data leakage, breach potential, and a real resume-generating blast radius.
The productivity shortcuts of the past don't compare to the accelerators we have today. We have vibe coding, AI-driven collaboration, and tools that shape entire workflows in seconds. Generative AI and modern LLMs offer an entirely new level of speed and depth. They help us plan travel in unfamiliar cities, break down dense scientific papers, explore obscure research topics, and turn complex problems into clear, actionable steps. This shift echoes the early rise of search engines when "Google" quietly became an imperative verb. Now we're entering a phase where GenAI will play the same role, redefining how work happens everywhere.
A workplace running on invisible AI
Inside most organizations, personal AI usage far outpaces official enterprise initiatives. Employees turn to flexible consumer tools because they work well and require no onboarding. Meanwhile, many enterprise GenAI pilots are stuck in small-scale trials or evaluation loops. ESG's recent research shows that most companies cannot see which GenAI services employees access, what information they paste into prompts, or how often shadow usage occurs. Attempts to control this with network-layer blocks or restrictive lists fail quickly, especially when encrypted GenAI traffic bypasses traditional inspection.
This is also where Check Point's open-garden approach becomes essential. Rather than locking customers into a closed ecosystem, Check Point supports integration, data sharing, and policy coordination across multivendor environments. That flexibility is critical because most enterprises already depend on a mix of vendors for identity, DLP, CASB, endpoint, and network security. GenAI usage does not stay within a single security stack therefore the controls must follow the user, not the vendor.
Risk grows when no one can see what's happening
The risk behind invisible GenAI usage is substantial. Sensitive data can leave the environment with a single paste event. Regulated information can be placed into prompts with no audit trail. Trust boundaries blur as prompts travel through external models that may store or reuse the data. At the same time, attackers are using GenAI to craft more convincing phishing attempts, impersonate executives, create synthetic media, and automate malware development. Traditional controls were not designed to inspect or classify conversational data, leaving visibility gaps that adversaries can exploit.
The concern is not that employees use GenAI. It is that they use it without visibility, guidance, or guardrails. Productivity is soaring, but so is the risk surface.
Productivity needs protection, not roadblocks
Employees rely on GenAI because it helps them produce and deliver work quickly. Internal enterprise tools rarely keep up because they lack integration, contextual memory, and adaptability. MIT's NANDA Report confirms this gap, showing that ninety-five percent of enterprise GenAI pilots generate no measurable return and only a small fraction reach full production. These systems simply cannot learn or evolve in the ways employees expect, so workers naturally fall back to consumer GenAI tools that provide flexibility and reliable output.
To move forward, organizations need a system like GenAI Protect that safeguards data without slipping back into "tripping over nickels," adding friction that slows people down. The guardrails must operate at the browser, endpoint, and session level, which is exactly where GenAI usage actually occurs.
A practical solution for the visibility gap
Check Point's GenAI Protect was built for this challenge. It gives organizations real-time visibility by identifying which GenAI applications employees use, what they submit, and whether any sensitive or regulated content is present. Instead of relying on keywords, it uses AI-driven contextual analysis to classify conversational data accurately.
GenAI Protect detects sanctioned and shadow AI apps, assigns session-level risk scores, and provides administrators with a complete picture of real-world usage. Policies can be applied per application, per user, or per action to enable blocking, warnings, or guided workflows. Compliance teams receive detailed audit trails aligned with GDPR, HIPAA, and the EU AI Act. Deployment takes minutes through a lightweight browser extension, and native integrations with Harmony Browse, Harmony Endpoint, and Harmony SASE allow organizations to enforce GenAI policies without rearchitecting their stack. The platform also works alongside other SASE vendors through Check Point's open-garden approach, sharing policy signals, risk insights, and DLP classifications across multivendor environments without disrupting existing architecture.
What safe GenAI use looks like in practice
The impact becomes clear the moment a user interacts with a GenAI tool.
- If an engineer pastes proprietary code into ChatGPT, the system analyzes the content and applies policy instantly.
- If HR uploads internal documents into a GenAI app, the system evaluates the data type and enforces the correct controls.
- If a financial analyst includes regulated information in Copilot, the system guides the user before anything is exposed.
The workflow is simple and consistent: detect, classify, apply policy, guide, and record. This keeps productivity high while keeping sensitive data protected.
Adding guardrails without slowing work down
These capabilities fit into modern multivendor environments without heavy restructuring. The browser extension provides the visibility traditional tools cannot. Harmony SASE covers remote and roaming users. Harmony DLP supports over seven hundred predefined and custom data types, including OCR for images. And Check Point's open-garden approach ensures that these insights can be shared across existing SIEM, CASB, IAM, and firewall solutions. GenAI Protect becomes the connective layer that ties identity, data, and session context together to create a functional governance model.
Moving from experiments to real value
Organizations that successfully navigate the GenAI surge follow a consistent pattern. They start with visibility and build policies around real usage instead of assumptions. They choose tools that integrate into existing workflows and deliver value quickly. They prioritize partnerships that accelerate outcomes instead of attempting internal builds that stall. And they focus on back-office and compliance-heavy areas where GenAI delivers measurable ROI. Most importantly, they place controls where GenAI activity actually occurs.
A safer way to support the work already being done
The workforce has embraced GenAI, and that momentum will not slow. Organizations must decide whether they want that usage to remain invisible or become governed. Blocking AI tools only recreates the old days of tripping over nickels. Ignoring them leaves the organization exposed. Safe adoption depends on visibility, guidance, and targeted controls that protect information without interrupting the work itself. GenAI Protect provides those guardrails, helping organizations move from experimentation to real, secure outcomes. The opportunity is significant, and the path is clear. The next step is supporting the way people work while keeping the organization protected.
Accelerating adoption through WWT and the AI Proving Ground
World Wide Technology strengthens this journey through the AI Proving Ground inside the Advanced Technology Center, a purpose-built environment where customers can validate GenAI solutions under real-world conditions. The ATC replicates hybrid networks, cloud architectures, identity systems, and multivendor security stacks, making it possible to test GenAI Protect against actual workflows and traffic patterns. Customers can observe policy behavior across SASE, endpoint, browser, and data layers, and understand how GenAI traffic moves through an environment where different vendors share responsibility for security. Check Point's open-garden approach aligns naturally with WWT's ability to integrate and benchmark technologies across diverse ecosystems. With repeatable labs, engineering support and production-grade simulation, WWT helps enterprises shorten evaluation cycles and move from concept to verified outcomes far faster than traditional pilots.
Handy links:
https://research.esg-global.com/
Check Point GenAI Protect FAQ
1. What does GenAI Protect actually do?
Check Point GenAI Protect monitors, classifies, and controls how employees use generative AI tools. It identifies risky prompts, sensitive data exposure, shadow-AI usage, and unsanctioned applications while providing policies to block, allow, or warn users in real time.
2. How does GenAI Protect see encrypted (HTTPS) AI traffic?
It relies on HTTPS inspection performed by a Check Point gateway or Harmony SASE. Once the traffic is decrypted at the inspection point, Check Point GenAI Protect receives the plaintext prompts and applies its AI-driven classification and risk analysis.
3. Does GenAI Protect work in a multi-vendor environment?
Yes. It ingests traffic logs and decrypted data from other vendors (Palo Alto, Zscaler, Netskope, Fortinet) as long as those devices send logs or route traffic through an inspection point that Check Point GenAI Protect can access. Harmony SASE simplifies this by acting as a consistent egress path.
4. Do I need Harmony SASE to use GenAI Protect?
No, but Harmony SASE provides the most seamless experience. Without SASE, you must rely on your existing web gateways, SWGs, or proxy logs. With SASE, every user—remote or on-prem—automatically gets full GenAI visibility and enforcement.
5. Does GenAI Protect block access to AI tools?
It can, but blocking is optional. You can configure it to allow full usage, warn users when actions are risky, or block specific prompts or entire apps. Most customers start with "monitor-only" mode before enforcing.
6. What types of AI apps does GenAI Protect detect?
It identifies major public and enterprise GenAI tools including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Midjourney, GitHub Copilot, and many others. It can also detect emerging apps through URL categorization and cloud-app discovery.
7. What kinds of sensitive data does it detect inside prompts?
It identifies PII, PCI, credentials, source code, HR/legal documents, customer data, confidential business information, and unstructured conversational data that traditional DLP tools often miss.
8. How does GenAI Protect handle employee privacy?
Admins can use role-based access so only approved roles see full prompt content. Non-privileged roles see redacted or anonymized data. The system supports privacy-by-design and logging controls to meet regulatory requirements.
9. How does GenAI Protect enforce policy?
Check Point GenAI Protect provides the intelligence and policy logic, while Check Point gateways or Harmony SASE perform the real-time enforcement. Based on policy, traffic is allowed, blocked, warned, or logged.
10. Does GenAI Protect integrate with SIEM or SOC workflows?
Yes. It exports risk scores, prompt logs, sensitive-data detections, and policy events to SIEM platforms such as Splunk, Sentinel, QRadar and Elastic, allowing GenAI activity to be included in normal incident-response workflows.