Inflation and rising interest rates are increasing borrowing costs and shrinking capital budgets, and for many organizations a single rate rise can wipe out the budget for a planned firewall refresh. Security budgets are under the same pressure. According to the IANS Research and Artico Search 2026 Security Budget Benchmark, the median security budget did not grow this year and 55% of CISOs saw their budgets stay flat or fall. While 64% asked for an increase, only 45% received one. At the same time, AI is increasing what every network has to inspect. When budgets are this tight, firewall refreshes are often among the first projects to slip, leaving organizations on hardware that was never designed for today’s AI-driven traffic and attacks.
Firewall-as-a-Subscription builds on R82.20, which introduced the AI Network Firewall in July 2026 to inspect AI traffic, protect AI applications and help govern AI agents at the network layer. Firewall-as-a-Subscription is the next step in Check Point’s mission to secure AI transformation, making that protection available to organizations of every size and budget.
“Organizations of all sizes face the same AI-driven threats, but for many, capital budget cycles often force them to delay firewall refreshes or buy more capacity than they need,” said Pete Finalle, Research Manager, Security and Trust at IDC. “Consumption models that turn on-premises security hardware into a predictable operating expense, and let organizations scale protection as their needs grow, can help close that gap. We expect demand for this kind of flexibility to rise as AI adoption increases the traffic and risk networks must handle.”
“Every organization is adopting AI, and every organization deserves the same level of protection, whatever its size or budget,” said Avi Rembaum, President Global Technical Sales at Check Point Software Technologies. “With Firewall-as-a-Subscription, we are making our most advanced AI security, threat prevention and agentic management available through one simple subscription, so organizations can secure their AI transformation today.”
Organizations pay one predictable monthly or annual subscription instead of buying hardware upfront. They can upgrade throughput at any time during the three-year term and move to new hardware after 36 months, so protection keeps pace with AI adoption and business growth.
