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Proofpoint Partners with Intel to Deliver Leading-Edge AI-Powered Information Protection

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Digital transformation has produced a tidal wave of data in recent years. At the same time, intellectual property and sensitive business information has become more vulnerable due to work-from-home policies as well as the proliferation of devices.

SecOps and IT departments struggle to identify critical data on managed endpoints in an efficient and scalable way. Not only must they classify various types of intellectual property (IP), but they also need to understand and anticipate user intent across many data exfiltration scenarios.

With Proofpoint, organizations can be sure their data stays safe. We recently partnered with Intel to deliver advanced information protection tools that work faster and more efficiently than ever. Here’s a rundown of some of the ways that Proofpoint is using Intel’s latest technology to accelerate some of our most advanced data loss prevention (DLP) use cases.

New Intel processors are a game changer

Launched at CES 2025, Intel’s AI PCs are now running Core Ultra 200V series processors. These processors feature an integrated neural processing unit (NPU) for AI acceleration. As a result, they are set to revolutionize the industry with dramatic performance gains and enhanced efficiency.

Proofpoint’s suite of cybersecurity tools leverages AI PCs for user behavior analysis, data classification and threat contextualization. With AI PCs powered by Intel Core Ultra processors, Proofpoint Information Protection can offload key AI and security workloads to the NPU on the endpoint. This enables the solution to run more efficiently, manage complexity better and scale to whatever you need.

Inline, live classification

To protect sensitive data DLP systems need to know what data needs to be protected. That’s why classifying data is so important. The challenge is that businesses create a massive amount of data every day which is spread across different systems.

Proofpoint Information Protection features inline, live data classification. This enables it to automatically tag data as it moves through business networks, ensuring that DLP systems know which data to protect.

We use large language models (LLMs) to analyze documents that are difficult to classify, such as intellectual property, that don't fit into obvious patterns. We also give you the tools so that you can gain visibility into the classification of the documents. Then, you can decide in real time whether to block their exfiltration.

Classifying data in real time requires considerable computing power. With Intel AI PCs, Proofpoint DLP can now offload most of the LLM workloads to the endpoint. Intel’s advanced processors enable Proofpoint to scan large amounts of data and classify it faster.

GenAI protection with user intent controls

As a productivity tool, generative AI (GenAI) opens the door to insider risks by careless, compromised or malicious users. 

  • Careless insiders. These users may input sensitive data—like customer data, proprietary algorithms or internal strategies—into GenAI tools. Or they may use them to create content that does not align with a company’s legal or regulatory standards, like documents with discriminatory language or images with inappropriate visuals.
  • Compromised insiders. Access to these tools can be compromised by threat actors. Attackers use this access to extract, generate or share sensitive data with external parties.  
  • Malicious insiders. Some insiders actively want to cause harm. So, they might intentionally leak sensitive data into public GenAI tools. Or, if they have access to proprietary models or datasets, they might use these tools to create competing products. They could also use GenAI to create or alter records to make it difficult for auditors to identify non-compliance.  

To mitigate these risks, companies need to be able to monitor AI usage and data access. Proofpoint has developed GenAI protection with user intent controls to help organizations address these risks.

Proofpoint uses LLMs to monitor all the prompts that users submit to GenAI websites to gain insight into the users’ intent. Organizations can write policies to detect or even prevent different prompts based on that categorization. This ensures that content generated by AI aligns with company goals. And it reduces the risk of security breaches.

With Intel AI PCs, most of the processing for these LLMs takes place on the endpoint device. Proofpoint uses the AI PC's NPU so that there's very little memory consumption or resource hogging. And because everything is kept right on the endpoint, this also assures user privacy.

Proofpoint and Intel are leading the way

With the power of NPUs in Intel Core Ultra processors, Proofpoint is helping organizations of all sizes fortify the human element—the weakest link in their cybersecurity chains—against malicious actions as well as simple mistakes.

Proofpoint helps businesses keep their data safe with tools like inline data classification and GenAI protection. Intel’s chips make these tools faster and more flexible.

Watch this short video to learn more about keeping your critical data assets safe with the intelligent power of an AI PC and Proofpoint Information Protection.