Secure and govern generative AI (GenAI) across your business
Even if you haven’t approved AI tools, your teams are already finding ways to use GenAI — often faster than governance can keep up. Barracuda® AI Data Security gives businesses a practical, scalable way to adopt AI safely and confidently. It helps teams use approved AI tools securely by inspecting prompts and uploads, blocking sensitive data before it reaches AI services and proving that governance controls are working through audit-ready evidence.
AI adoption by the numbers
AI is already part of everyday work. The question is whether your business can see where it’s being used, guide employees toward approved tools and protect sensitive data as adoption grows.
The goal isn’t to block AI. The goal is to help your teams use it safely.
AI Data Security works alongside shadow AI visibility. First, see which AI tools are in use. Then, guide employees toward approved tools and protect sensitive data before it reaches AI services.
How it happens: The path from adoption to accountability
Unsanctioned AI use, sometimes referred to as shadow AI, rarely starts as a security decision. It starts as a productivity decision. Understanding how everyday AI use turns into data exposure is the first step to controlling it.
Adoption
Employees reach for GenAI tools to write, code, summarize, and analyze faster — often before IT has approved tools or set policies.
Exposure
Sensitive data travels with them. Customer records, source code, credentials, payment data, health records, and other regulated information can move into AI tools through ordinary prompts and file uploads.
Blind spots
Without inspection, there is no record of what was shared, which tool received it or who sent it. Policies may exist, but they don’t prevent data from being entered in AI tools.
Accountability
Questions eventually arrive from auditors, insurers, leadership, or customers: Which AI tools are in use, what data reached them and what controls are in place?
Barracuda AI Data Security puts you on the right path, making each stage visible and enforceable, so AI adoption keeps moving while sensitive data stays protected.
Adoption is easy, but control isn’t
Most businesses already know AI is in use. The hard part is keeping sensitive data out of it without slowing down adoption or innovation. Three challenges often get in the way.
Bans don’t work
Restrictions can push AI use out of sight instead of making it safer. 57% of employees hide their AI use from supervisors⁵, and one in five breaches now involves unauthorized AI tools.5
Enterprise-grade tooling is out of reach
Many AI governance and data security tools are built for large enterprises with large security teams. Smaller organizations often need easier, faster ways to reduce AI risk without adding operational complexity.
Policies aren’t enforced
Acceptable-use policies are important, but they can’t inspect the data employees enter into AI tools, detect sensitive data or demonstrate the governance needed for audits, insurance reviews and internal reporting.
Complete AI data security
Powered by the Barracuda IQ™ engine, Barracuda AI Data Security helps organizations move from AI awareness to enforceable protection. The first solution in the Barracuda AI Security portfolio, Barracuda AI Data Security helps businesses protect the sensitive data employees share with GenAI tools today, while laying the foundation for broader AI governance across applications, workflows and future AI agents. It gives security teams the visibility, policy controls, inspection capabilities, and audit-ready evidence needed to support safe AI adoption from the BarracudaONE® platform.
Stop sensitive data before it reaches AI
Barracuda inspects prompts and file uploads in real time, then blocks, warns or redacts sensitive content before it leaves your environment — including personal information, credentials, source code, payment data, health records, and other confidential business information.
Why it matters
Employees can use AI productively while customer records, credentials, source code, and regulated data stay protected.
Keep AI interactions safe
Inspect what users send to AI tools and what those tools send back, catching sensitive or unsafe content in both directions. Barracuda identifies prompt injection attempts, jailbreaks and policy violations before they create risk — supporting a practical GenAI security strategy without adding complexity for users.
Why it matters
AI interactions can include hidden instructions, unsafe content or attempts to bypass controls. Detecting these issues keeps approved AI use safe.
Set AI policies that fit the way you work
Guide users toward approved AI tools — and block, warn or redact per policy, applied by group or across the business. Engineering can use an AI coding assistant; sales can be blocked from pasting customer data into an AI tool; and marketing can receive a warning before sharing campaign details.
Why it matters
One-size-fits-all AI policies don’t work. Different teams carry different needs and different risks. Say “yes” to AI where it makes sense and “no” where it doesn’t — without heavy policy engineering.
Prove control with an audit-ready trail
Every inspection and action is logged, including user, policy, detection type, action taken, and timestamp. Reports are easily exported to support internal reviews, compliance checks and insurance questionnaires. Strong AI data governance and data security posture management require visibility into how data interacts with AI tools and the controls protecting it.
Why it matters
You don’t just have an AI policy. You have evidence that it’s being enforced.
Easy. Intelligent. Complete.
Why Barracuda AI Data Security
Easy
Get AI enforcement quickly with prebuilt detection, familiar policy workflows and AI-assisted setup through Barracuda’s Bailey™ AI assistant.
Intelligent
Powered by Barracuda IQ with prebuilt detection and smart classification, protection works out of the box without lengthy setup or heavy tuning.
Complete
Gain visibility into AI use, guide employees toward approved tools, protect sensitive data, and produce audit-ready evidence from one platform.
Built for lean IT and security teams
Enterprise AI governance shouldn’t require enterprise-sized teams. Effective governance means understanding AI use, managing risk and enforcing policies consistently. Barracuda AI Data Security gives resource-constrained businesses practical controls they can easily deploy, manage and demonstrate without specialized AI security expertise.
The plan
AI Data Security plans at a glance
Barracuda AI Data Security follows a simple path: See AI use, guide employees toward approved tools and accelerate adoption safely. We make it easy to get started with visibility, then add enforcement when your team’s ready.
See
Foundation (Free)
See which AI risks are present — without deploying anything new.
What you get
Shadow AI and AI data security risk discovery.
Guide
Premium
Set and enforce boundaries on AI tools and services to protect the data users share.
What you get
AI data protection across more than 1,300 GenAI tools, including Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Accelerate
Premium Plus
Extend AI protection to the other tools and workflows your teams use, so data risks are stopped before they happen.
What you get
Real-time prompt inspection and data loss prevention across AI tools and workflows.
Already using Barracuda SecureEdge Access?
For existing Barracuda SecureEdge Access customers, Barracuda AI Data Security extends familiar protection to GenAI tools — no separate deployment project is required.
Bottom line: Customers using Barracuda SecureEdge Access today can easily extend protection to AI governance without starting from scratch.
Proof — not just policy
AI governance depends on more than written policies. Organizations pay $670,000 more on average when shadow AI is involved in a breach³, and just about 6% of organizations move Copilot beyond pilot to large-scale deployment⁷. Barracuda AI Data Security gives businesses proof that sensitive data controls are working, helping security teams demonstrate progress to executives, auditors, insurers, and internal stakeholders.
Related blog posts
1. McKinsey, The State of AI, 2025
2. Gartner, “Critical GenAI Blind Spots” , 2025
3. IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025
4. IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026
5. KPMG and University of Melbourne, Trust, Attitudes and Use of AI, 2025
6. Gartner, 2025 Microsoft 365 Copilot Survey
