What is Prisma AIRS built from?
It draws on Palo Alto Networks' 2025 Protect AI acquisition and Portkey, a deal reported at about $140M in the company's 10-Q and closed on May 29, 2026.
Beam vs PALO ALTO NETWORKS
Beam vs Prisma AIRS
Prisma AIRS is an enterprise AI security platform covering discovery, posture management, red-teaming, runtime protection and agent security, assembled from Palo Alto's Protect AI acquisition and Portkey (about $140M per the company's 10-Q, closed May 29, 2026). It operates at a scale Beam does not attempt. Beam is a single-machine, local-first monitor with no enforcement.
Beam vs Prisma AIRS, side by side
Details below are drawn from a September 2026 review of the AI agent security market. Some figures are vendor-sourced or analyst estimates, and this is a fast-moving space — check with each vendor before you buy.
| Beam | Prisma AIRS (Palo Alto Networks) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Local-first activity monitor and pre-run scanner for AI coding agents. Early prototype. | Enterprise AI security platform spanning discovery, posture, red-teaming, runtime and agent security. |
| Monitoring | Shell commands, file changes, tool calls, network endpoints and browser actions from harnesses such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, normalised into local NDJSON with risk flags and evidence attached. | Runtime protection and agent security across an organisation's AI estate. |
| Skill / MCP scanning | Yes. SKILL.md files and MCP configurations are scanned before you run them, using 11 heuristic patterns plus an MCP version-pin check. | Not specifically covered in our source research. |
| Blocking / enforcement | No. Beam observes and flags. It never allows or denies an action. | Runtime protection is part of the platform. |
| Individual use | Runs locally for one person on one machine. Shared teams, fleet rollout and approvals are not built yet. | None. This is an enterprise platform sale. |
| Deployment | A local collector plus a local interface. No MDM package, no central console, no SSO, no SOC 2, no SIEM forwarding. | Enterprise deployment within the Palo Alto Networks platform. |
| Source / licence | Not open source today. | Commercial, not open source. |
| Pricing | Not published. | Enterprise custom quote, no public price. |
Prisma AIRS in numbers
As reported in our source research. Some figures are estimates.
- Built from
- The Protect AI acquisition (2025) and Portkey
- Portkey deal
- About $140M per Palo Alto Networks' 10-Q, closed May 29, 2026
- Scope
- Discovery, posture, red-teaming, runtime, agent security
Where Prisma AIRS does more
- Covers the whole enterprise AI estate — discovery, posture, red-teaming, runtime — where Beam covers one machine's agent activity.
- Runtime protection and enforcement are part of the platform.
- Backed by a major security vendor, assembled through the Protect AI and Portkey acquisitions.
Where Beam differs
- Beam addresses one narrow question — what did the coding agent on this laptop do — with no platform commitment.
- Beam runs locally, keeps its record on the machine, and redacts credentials before writing.
- Beam's pre-run scan of a SKILL.md or mcp.json is a single command on a single file.
Beam’s current gaps
- Beam observes and flags. It has no blocking or enforcement, so it cannot stop a destructive command.
- There is no MDM package, central console, SSO or SOC 2 report, so it is not ready for a managed fleet rollout.
- Scanning is heuristic pattern matching. It produces false positives, misses novel phrasing, and is not a guarantee of safety.
- Beam is early and has no published pricing. Every tool on this page is further along in at least one dimension.
Which one fits
If you are buying a platform to secure an organisation's whole AI estate, Prisma AIRS is that category and Beam is not competing for it. Beam fits earlier and smaller: one developer, one machine, one question about what an agent did.
FAQ
Does Prisma AIRS replace a local agent monitor?
They answer different questions. Prisma AIRS covers an organisation's AI estate; Beam records what a coding agent did on one developer machine.
Is there a free tier?
No public price is listed — it is an enterprise custom quote. Beam has no published pricing either.
See how Beam works
Beam is an early, local-first prototype. Read what it actually does today before comparing it further.