F5 and Skyfire Partner to Launch Secure AI Agent Technology
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: Mar 18 2026
0mins
Should l Buy FFIV?
F5 and Skyfire announced a technology partnership designed to enable enterprises to securely allow verified AI agents while still blocking malicious actors. The planned integration brings Skyfire's open know your agent protocol to the F5 application delivery and security platform, intended to enable merchants and content providers to distinguish legitimate, revenue-generating AI agent traffic from malicious automation.
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Analyst Views on FFIV
Wall Street analysts forecast FFIV stock price to rise
10 Analyst Rating
1 Buy
8 Hold
1 Sell
Hold
Current: 281.980
Low
260.00
Averages
287.56
High
320.00
Current: 281.980
Low
260.00
Averages
287.56
High
320.00
About FFIV
F5, Inc. is a provider of multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions. The Company enables its customers to deploy, operate, secure, optimize, and govern every application and application programming interface (API) across any architecture, on-premises, in the cloud, at the edge and across hybrid, multi-cloud environments. Its enterprise-grade application services are available as hardware, software, and software-as-a-service solutions optimized for hybrid, multicloud environments, with modules that can run independently, or as part of an integrated solution on its high-performance appliances. Through its BIG-IP, F5 NGINX and F5 Distributed Cloud Services products, it offers a range of integrated, artificial intelligence- and machine learning-driven solutions that support performance and protect applications and APIs across data center, cloud, and edge locations. Its products and solutions also include F5 Distributed Cloud CDN and F5 NGINX Ingress Controller, among others.
About the author
Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
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- Arm Holdings' New Strategy: Arm Holdings has launched its own Arm AGI CPU chip, projecting annual revenue of $15 billion by 2031, raising total revenue to $25 billion, indicating significant growth potential in the AI data center market.
- CrowdStrike's Performance Boost: CrowdStrike's annual recurring revenue surged by 120% in the fourth quarter, receiving an upgrade from Morgan Stanley to a buy rating with a price target raised to $510, highlighting strong growth prospects in the cloud security sector.
- Investor Focus on High Valuations: While both Arm and CrowdStrike exhibit substantial growth potential, their stocks are considered overvalued at 61 times and 84 times forward earnings, respectively, prompting investors to carefully assess the associated risks and returns.
See More
Arm Holdings Launches In-House CPU Amid AI Boom, Shares Surge 13%
- In-House Chip Launch: Arm Holdings unveiled its first in-house central processing unit, the AGI CPU, designed to meet the inference needs of AI data centers, with an expected incremental revenue of approximately $1 billion through fiscal year 2028, potentially growing to $15 billion by fiscal year 2031, indicating strong market potential.
- Rating Upgrade: Raymond James upgraded Arm's rating from market perform to outperform, setting a price target of $166, suggesting a 23% upside, reflecting confidence in the company's new business model that includes a fabless semiconductor element.
- Surging Market Demand: With hyperscalers like Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon committing nearly $700 billion in capital expenditures, Arm's AGI CPU is positioned to meet the booming demand for AI hardware, further solidifying its market position.
- Industry-Leading Performance: The AGI CPU claims to deliver twice the performance of x86 CPUs in high-end configurations, featuring superior bandwidth and execution thread capabilities, attracting interest from companies like Meta, showcasing its broad applicability in AI applications.
See More
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- Chip Design Legacy: Arm Holdings has been at the forefront of chip design for over 35 years, creating and licensing a wide range of semiconductor blueprints for smartphones, PCs, tablets, and smart TVs, demonstrating its profound impact on the global semiconductor market.
- AI Infrastructure Pivot: The company has launched its first in-house designed Arm AGI CPU, optimized for large-scale AI infrastructure, featuring 64 CPUs and 8,700 cores, achieving twice the performance-per-watt compared to x86 architecture, marking a significant pivot into the AI sector.
- Strategic Partnerships: Meta Platforms serves as the lead partner for the Arm AGI CPU, becoming its first large-scale user, with both companies committing to collaborate across multiple generations of the Arm AGI CPU roadmap, further solidifying Arm's position in the AI market.
- Market Potential: By entering the $1 trillion AI CPU market, Arm aims to leverage its shipment of over 350 billion Arm-based chips and a developer ecosystem of over 22 million to expand its market share and enhance company valuation.
See More
Arm Launches Its First In-House Silicon Chip
- Chip Launch: Arm unveiled its first in-house designed chip, the Arm AGI CPU, in San Francisco, marking a significant pivot into physical silicon production, which is expected to enhance its competitiveness in the AI infrastructure market.
- Strategic Partnership: Meta Platforms serves as the lead partner in co-developing the Arm AGI CPU and will be its first large-scale user, fostering close collaboration on multiple future generations of the chip, thereby strengthening their market positions.
- Impressive Customer Base: Initial customers for the Arm AGI CPU include notable companies such as Cloudflare, F5, OpenAI, SAP, and SK Telecom, which will help Arm secure a foothold in the rapidly growing AI CPU market projected to reach $1 trillion.
- Significant Market Potential: Arm has shipped over 350 billion chips based on its architecture, and with a forward price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 0.57, it indicates potential undervaluation, suggesting significant growth opportunities through its new business venture.
See More
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- Performance Boost: The integration of F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes with NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs results in a 40% increase in token throughput, a 61% faster time to first token, and a 34% reduction in overall request latency, significantly enhancing AI inference efficiency and economics.
- Cost Optimization: By offloading networking, TLS encryption, and traffic management tasks to NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs, F5's solution not only frees up host CPU capacity but also improves GPU utilization, thereby reducing the cost per token and enhancing enterprise competitiveness.
- Multi-Tenant Support: The new system supports intelligent traffic control and secure network-level multi-tenancy, enabling enterprises to securely share GPU infrastructure across different business units or external customers while maintaining performance isolation and predictable service levels.
- Economic Control Plane: F5 and NVIDIA provide enterprises with tools and best practices to optimize inference architecture, positioning BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes as a strategic control plane for AI factory economics, helping businesses increase revenue per GPU, lower operational costs, and support sustainable growth.
See More
F5 Unveils Major Enhancements to ADSP Platform
- Platform Upgrade: F5 unveiled significant enhancements to its Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) at AppWorld, introducing F5 Insight to provide unified observability and proactive intelligence aimed at simplifying the complexities of modern IT environments and enhancing customer experience.
- AI-Driven Intelligence: F5 Insight leverages Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration and support for large language models (LLMs) to offer predictive analytics and operational narratives, assisting teams in prioritizing actions and addressing vulnerabilities, thereby improving operational efficiency and collaboration.
- Future-Ready Cryptography: The upcoming BIG-IP v21.1 version enhances support for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) by introducing NIST-compliant cryptographic ciphers, ensuring application security against future quantum threats and boosting customer trust.
- Simplified SaaS Deployment: F5 has reimagined its packaging for Distributed Cloud Services, launching Essentials and Enterprise packages that integrate CDN and API security capabilities, simplifying subscription processes and reducing friction for customers migrating to a unified platform, thereby driving business growth.
See More
