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Certiv vs CASB

CASBs govern traffic to sanctioned SaaS apps. Certiv governs AI agents at the endpoint. They're complementary, not competitive.

In short

A CASB sees network traffic to known cloud apps. It cannot see what an AI agent is reasoning about, which tools it's about to call, or whether the model is running locally. Certiv adds that semantic visibility and enforces policy before the agent acts.

Capability
Certiv
CASB
Discovers shadow AI agents on the endpoint
Yes — sees agents running locally, even off-network
No — only sees apps that hit the network
Sees agent reasoning + tool calls
Yes — semantic visibility at the point of intent
No — sees HTTP/API endpoints, not why
Enforces policy before action executes
Yes — pre-execution block, flag, or redirect
Partial — can block traffic to known SaaS
Works with on-device / local models
Yes — endpoint-native, model agnostic
No — local inference is invisible to CASB
Governs sanctioned SaaS access (Office 365, etc)
Complements; not the primary use case
Yes — its original purpose
DLP for file uploads to SaaS apps
No — different problem domain
Yes — strong fit

Cloud Access Security Brokers were built for a world where the security boundary was the perimeter between users and SaaS. They watch HTTP traffic, decrypt where they have keys, and apply DLP rules at the cloud boundary. That's still the right approach for sanctioned-SaaS governance.

AI agents broke the model in three ways. First, agents reason — the important context isn't the API call but the chain of decisions that led to it. Second, many agents run on the endpoint and never make traffic that the CASB can see. Third, when agents do call cloud services, the CASB sees one of many sub-actions in a multi-step plan, with no idea what the plan is.

Certiv sits on the endpoint at the point of intent: between the agent's decision and its action. It sees the reasoning chain, the data being touched, and the destination — and can block, flag, or redirect before execution. The CASB still does its job at the SaaS boundary; Certiv does its job at the agent boundary.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Expand to view common questions.

Should we replace our CASB with Certiv?
No. They solve different problems. CASB governs traffic between users and sanctioned SaaS apps (Office 365, Salesforce, etc) and provides DLP at that boundary. Certiv governs AI agents at the endpoint — what they reason about, which tools they call, what data they touch. The two are complementary: keep your CASB for SaaS governance, add Certiv for agent runtime assurance.
Why can't a CASB see what AI agents are doing?
A CASB sits in the network path and inspects traffic to known cloud apps. It sees that an agent made an API call to OpenAI, but not what the agent was instructed to do, what data was in the prompt, or what it intends to do next. CASBs also can't see agents running locally (Claude Desktop, IDE copilots, custom apps with local models) because that traffic never leaves the device.
Where do CASB and Certiv overlap?
Both can flag traffic to unsanctioned cloud AI services. A CASB might block egress to api.openai.com from a corporate device; Certiv sees the same call at the agent layer and adds reasoning-chain context (why the agent made it, what data was attached). The CASB gives you a coarse on/off switch; Certiv gives you semantic policy.

Keep reading

Our approach

The architectural choice that lets Certiv see agent intent on the endpoint.

See the product

Discover, understand, control, and protect — how Certiv ships.

The Lethal Trifecta

A concrete agent attack pattern no CASB can see, and how Certiv blocks it.