‘This isn’t just another service or security tool that’s getting bolted on. This is a change to the way that businesses operate, and it needs to be treated with that level of importance,’ says Barracuda Chief Product Officer Neal Bradbury.
Barracuda has launched Barracuda AI Data Security, a new security and governance platform to help resource-constrained businesses adopt generative AI without losing control of sensitive data while giving MSPs a bigger role in guiding that shift.
The Campbell, Calif.-based cybersecurity vendor saw a gap in the market where businesses are adopting AI tools, but many lack the expertise to understand what employees are using, what data they are putting into those tools and whether those activities create security or compliance risks.
For MSPs, Barracuda Chief Product Officer Neal Bradbury (pictured) sees that gap as a new opportunity to move beyond traditional IT management and become a strategic adviser around AI.
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“The organizations that win with AI won’t be the ones that slowed it down. They’ll be the ones that learned how to adopt it safely, and this is true for businesses of all sizes,” Bradbury told CRN. “I see this as a massive opportunity for MSPs because, just like you had shadow IT, shadow AI is where this is going.”
Rather than trying to block AI outright, Bradbury said MSPs can help clients understand and control how the technology is being used, much like the channel helped businesses navigate cloud adoption and Microsoft 365.
“This is effectively that cloud moment,” he said. “The MSP channel figured out how to put people in the cloud, adopt M365 and then figured out how to do security as part of those offerings. To me, this is that next iteration of how an MSP goes and adds value for their customers.”
Barracuda AI Data Security provides visibility into AI usage across more than 1,300 generative AI tools including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude and Gemini. It can detect sensitive information being submitted to AI services, inspect prompts and uploads, identify threats such as prompt injection and jailbreak attempts and creates an audit trail for compliance purposes.
“If you’re an MSP and you are staying up with these technologies, you need easy-to-deploy, easy-to-buy and easy-to-use solutions that you can deploy and give visibility to businesses,” Bradbury said. “We’ve built this to be MSP-friendly from the start.”
Partner Michael Goldstein agreed and said Barracuda’s launch arrives right on time.
“We are heavily pursuing the AI governance option and not just talking about AI. We give users sophisticated tools, and now we have to govern what they actually put into those tools and what they have access to,” Goldstein, market president of Southeast Florida for Fort Myers, Fla.-based Entech, told CRN. “It’s a natural extension of what MSPs are already doing.”
The platform can be deployed in minutes with prebuilt sensitive-data detection, while centralized multitenant management lets MSPs oversee multiple customers. The CPO also said the product will use familiar firewall-style workflows and guided configuration through its Bailey AI assistant.
Many MSPs, he said, are still at the most basic stage of AI governance and figuring out what is happening inside their customers’ environments.
“The governance piece is almost like number two,” he said. “They don’t even know what their customers are doing. They’re saying, ‘I need to get visibility to understand what my customers are using.’ This effectively gives them that visibility.”
That visibility can also give MSPs the opportunity to have deeper conversations with clients around AI and AI governance.
“It allows that MSP to be more strategic than just the IT person,” he said. “They can show a business owner where AI is being used today and what potential use cases they might not even know about.
“This isn’t just another service or security tool that’s getting bolted on,” he added. “This is a change to the way that businesses operate, and it needs to be treated with that level of importance.”
Barracuda AI Data Security is scheduled to become available in October 2026.
