Citrix, recently unveiled the introduction of NetScaler® AI Gateway, an AI-specific add-on to its leading platform for delivering and securing applications. The solution is developed to take AI from experimentation and proof-of-concept phase to a powerful deployment environment where companies can gain a unified control plane that enables better management of LLM cost optimization, enhanced performance, and stricter security policies.
With more organizations adopting AI technology for use in critical business processes, a similarly reliable and well-managed architecture must be provided for managing the traffic. NetScaler AI Gateway meets this need by applying the platform’s proven capabilities in observability and traffic management to the unique demands of AI workloads.
“AI is becoming embedded in the operational fabric of the enterprise,” said Steve Shah, general manager of NetScaler at Citrix. “Before organizations scale AI across core business processes, they need trusted guardrails to manage risk, control cost, and maintain performance. NetScaler AI Gateway extends our leadership in enterprise application delivery into the AI era, enabling organizations to run AI services with the governance, visibility, and operational confidence required for mission-critical deployments.”
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Field-Proven Architecture for AI at Scale
The NetScaler AI Gateway is already a foundational component of Citrix Aidrien™, the company’s AI-powered in-product assistant. By utilizing NetScaler to secure and manage AI traffic within its own production environment, Citrix has demonstrated that the gateway is a battle-tested solution capable of supporting enterprise-scale AI systems with immediate effect.
Strategic Integration with Protecto for Data Privacy
In a move to bolster data security, Citrix also announced a strategic integration between NetScaler and Protecto, an AI-native data protection platform. This collaboration links Protecto’s agentic data classification technology directly to the NetScaler AI Gateway. The integrated solution automatically detects and masks sensitive information before it enters AI workflows, ensuring compliance and maintaining customer trust without degrading data utility.
Protecto Founder and CEO Amar Kanagaraj said, “Every enterprise racing to deploy AI faces the same dilemma: move fast and risk exposing customer data, or slow down and lose competitive ground. That trade-off shouldn’t exist. Protecto’s agentic data classification catches what traditional AI security tools miss, and integrates directly with NetScaler AI Gateway to block or mask sensitive data before it ever reaches AI systems – without losing the context AI needs to function accurately. Enterprises can finally scale AI at full speed without putting their data at risk.”
Removing Obstacles to AI Implementation
Conventional IT systems frequently lack the capacity to address the unique traffic flow and expense models of AI. The NetScaler AI Gateway provides an integrated control layer that replaces disparate point products, enabling IT departments to:
Consolidate Policy Control: Manage all AI applications using a standardized policy without generating new silos within operations.
Control LLM Expenditures: Manage and predict costs associated with token usage and inference traffic.
Ensure Regulatory Compliance: Leverage automated data masking and auditability to meet global privacy standards.
“As enterprises transition AI from pilot to production environments, the challenges shift from model selection and experimentation to governance, visibility, and control,” said Paul Nicholson, research vice president, cloud and datacenter networks at IDC. “Organizations require centralized, policy-driven control to ensure visibility, repeatability, and accountability for AI services at scale. Solutions like NetScaler AI Gateway can help organizations address these evolving enterprise requirements.”