Exclusive: Aryaka redefining SASE with a unified, AI-driven approach

The Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) market is increasingly crowded, with many vendors piecing together networking and security through acquisitions. But for Shailesh Shukla, Chief Executive Officer at Aryaka, this patchwork approach creates major integration, performance, and management challenges.

"What makes us different is that Aryaka built Unified SASE as a Service from the ground up to solve these challenges, offering a fully converged, cloud-first platform that seamlessly integrates networking, security, and observability," he said.

Unlike competitors that rely on the public internet, Aryaka owns and operates a private global backbone, ensuring consistent, high-performance connectivity worldwide.

"Security is embedded at the core—not bolted on—delivering zero trust protection across users, applications, and locations," Shukla added.

Owning the Network Infrastructure

Many SASE providers depend on third-party carriers, leading to performance issues and security gaps. Aryaka's private global backbone eliminates these concerns.

"This creates unpredictable performance, security gaps, and a lack of accountability," Shukla explained. "We don't rely on the public internet, eliminating congestion and packet loss issues."

The company's single-pass architecture, Aryaka OnePASS, ensures that security policies are consistently enforced.

"Multi-pass architectures require data to be backhauled for inspection by an on-prem or cloud appliance, introducing latency, slowing response times, and negatively impacting user experience," he said.

Aryaka has also introduced dynamic Points of Presence (PoPs) in AWS and GCP regions to provide high-performance connectivity. "The ability to deliver high performance with end-to-end security enforcement is important today, but it will become even more critical with GenAI deployments," Shukla added.

The Role of AI in Aryaka's Strategy

AI is a core part of Aryaka's business strategy, improving both its own platform and its customers' networking and security capabilities.

"We're embedding AI in two key ways," Shukla said. "Firstly, we are optimizing and protecting customer GenAI implementations. We introduced AI>Perform last summer to ensure that GenAI workloads perform well across the network."

Later this year, Aryaka will launch AI>Secure, which will enhance access control and protect against AI-specific security threats.

Internally, Aryaka's AI>Observe leverages hundreds of AI models to offer real-time visibility into network security risks. The company also applies AI for traffic optimization and network self-healing.

"LLM-based automation streamlines as-a-service operations, including troubleshooting and security compliance management," he added. "We're not just supporting AI-driven enterprises—we're using AI to revolutionize how networks are managed and secured."

AI and the Future of Network Infrastructure

AI workloads are particularly demanding, requiring low-latency, high-performance connectivity.

Traditional networks struggle to keep up, but Aryaka's private network backbone offers an alternative to congested internet-based solutions.

"AI-driven enterprises can't afford bottlenecks—Aryaka ensures they don't have to deal with them," Shukla said.

AI>Perform ensures that AI workloads receive priority optimization, preventing slowdowns.

Solving Business Challenges for C-Level Executives

Aryaka's services address key concerns for executives across multiple business functions.

"The CEO is interested in removing the obstacles to growth," Shukla said. "Our service enables faster global expansion and agility without complexity."

For CFOs, the primary concern is cost savings. "By eliminating expensive and inflexible MPLS circuits and reducing vendor sprawl, Aryaka customers typically see up to 25% savings," he added.

CIOs benefit from simplified IT operations, with a single platform for networking and security.

"This enables them to consolidate teams and eliminate the problems of siloed working," he said.

For CISOs, Aryaka strengthens security through zero-trust enforcement and AI-driven threat detection. "It's more than just cost savings—it's about making businesses more secure, agile, and competitive," he said.

The ROI of Aryaka's Services

Enterprises that adopt Aryaka see significant returns. "They see 113% ROI with payback in under six months," Shukla said.

This is achieved by eliminating legacy networking costs, reducing IT overhead, and optimizing productivity.

"AI-driven automation cuts down on troubleshooting and management hours," he explained. "Faster, more reliable connectivity ensures better user experiences and fewer IT issues, particularly for remote users."

Growth Plans and Partner Strategy

Aryaka is expanding to meet the growing demand for Unified SASE, particularly in EMEA and the Asia-Pacific region.

"As we're talking, Aryaka is expanding its presence to meet increasing demand for Unified SASE," Shukla said. "Specifically, we've hired senior executives to lead an expanded partner programme, including Nitin Ahuja, who has joined Aryaka as VP and GM for Asia Pacific."

Partnerships are key to Aryaka's strategy, including agents, managed service providers (MSPs), and value-added resellers (VARs). "We're scaling Aryaka's Unified SASE platform globally through strategic partnerships," Shukla added.

"Global telecom providers are also important partners as they bring integrated solutions to market with us."

A Vision for the Future

Aryaka's long-term vision is to create a new generation of secure networking—where networking and security are fully converged, AI-powered, and capable of dynamically scaling to enterprise needs.

"We're excited by the potential of AI inside our platform to automate performance and security," Shukla said. "Eliminating manual interventions, maximizing performance, and improving threat detection."

Reflecting on Aryaka's progress, he noted how much the industry has evolved.

"If you'd asked me this question five years ago, when people were just starting to talk about SASE, I would probably have described Unified SASE as a Service. Back then, secure, high-performance networking was the ideal state we were all trying to reach. Today, it's up and running."