Checklist

What CISOs Must Ask AI Security Vendors

CISOs: Here’s what to ask AI security vendors

AI introduces risk across four distinct domains: AI User Protection, AI App Protection, AI Runtime Protection, and AI Agent Governance. When you speak with AI security vendors, it’s important to understand how their platforms secure each domain across enterprise AI adoption.

This ready-to-go guide gives you a vendor-neutral set of questions and validations to help you make informed comparisons across AI security vendors. Rather than serving as a deep technical scoping tool, this guide emphasizes business outcomes and continuous value delivery. You’ll see who has the capabilities to protect your data, enforce policy, maintain compliance, and manage AI risk.

Use it as is or adapt for your organization’s needs. Either way, you’ll avoid days, even weeks, of in-house prep.

This guide helps you:

  • Quickly prepare for vendor conversations: Skip internal drafting with prepared questions, prompts, and validations that deliver clarity.
  • Get everyone on the same page: One shared diligence framework that keeps teams aligned across vendor discussions.
  • Keep equity in evaluation: Sections and questions examine architecture, convergence, capabilities, and regulatory alignment, standardizing beyond marketing claims.
  • Bring consistency to discussions: Vendors respond to the same asks, making differences easier to see, and decisions easier to make.

Download the checklist