Fortinet welcomed a record number of attendees to its Accelerate 2026 event in Las Vegas. I had the opportunity to spend a full day with the company’s leadership team and customers, learning more about the firewall category leader and its broad, deep portfolio of secure networking solutions. With the theme of summarizing my event attendance with three big takeaways, let’s dive in!
FortiOS 8.0 And FortiSOC
Two big announcements punctuated Accelerate 2026. First, the introduction of FortiOS 8.0 builds on the company’s investment in the operating system launched nearly 25 years ago, which powers its security fabric. Enhancements include AI runtime security controls, SASE enhancements, and new quantum-safe capabilities. From my perspective, the deployment of AI agents to streamline operational management, new sovereign SASE options, unified bundles, and the application of PQC certificates and enhanced SSL inspection are standout features. Many of Fortinet’s competitors offer OSs, but its approach is highly differentiated, given the maturity of its networking and security features, which are deeply integrated.
Second, the announced preview of FortiSOC aims to weave together existing solutions, including observation, analysis, threat hunting, SIEM, SOAR, and more, into a single platform. With the addition of an agentic framework and best practices gleaned from its own security operations center, Fortinet is also planning to offer its “SOC in a Box” capabilities as a service. The latter is designed to ease deployment for smaller organizations that lack the resources to manage operational control. I really like the go-to-market approach with FortiSOC, and it gives the company’s channel partners another high-value service to monetize.
Operational Technology Security As A Platform
One segment in which Fortinet is investing heavily is operational technology security. It is a smart move given the company’s opportunity to use a “land and expand” strategy, leveraging its success in enterprise IT environments.
OT security may be one of Fortinet’s best-kept secrets, but not for long. Given the current geopolitical climate, bad actors will intensify attacks on critical infrastructure. There will also be a need to ensure OT security in massive AI data center buildouts. The company is not simply adding a software layer on top of existing infrastructure for visibility and inventory. It is purpose-built to address the challenges of securing the myriad of manufacturing equipment and control systems. Fortinet’s recent October partnership announcement with Armis could also deepen the portfolio. If you want to learn more, there is a wealth of information, including a 2025 State of OT report that highlights many of the challenges organizations face in securing these complex environments.
Depth In Custom Silicon
Custom silicon is a high bar requiring a deep level of engineering acumen. Fortinet continues to dedicate a sizable portion of its R&D efforts in ASICs, and it represents another key differentiator for the company. Fortinet’s custom silicon is purpose-built to accelerate networking and security functions and can be found across a wide range of its infrastructure, unlike other solution providers that offer it only at the higher end of infrastructure stacks. With its focus on security, content, and network processing units, Fortinet can offer significant performance, power efficiency, and security improvements that complement its FortiOS and security fabric offerings.
I will be digging deeper into Fortinet’s custom silicon capabilities in future research notes. In the interim, this white paper highlights the company’s insights into the value of its silicon roadmap.
Final Thoughts
Fortinet is firing on all cylinders lately. Top-line revenue growth approached $7 billion in 2025, up from the prior year. Much of that success can be attributed to the company’s diversification across geographic and market segments. That is powerful, given the current geopolitical environment and the need to rely on a discrete market or customer set.
During the Accelerate 2026 first-day keynote, Fortinet founder and chief executive Ken Xie spoke to the company’s significant R&D investments and deep patent portfolio as a competitive edge in fighting AI with AI. I do not consider patent counting a measure of innovation depth, but Fortinet is clearly delivering value to its customers by balancing deep networking and security capabilities at compelling price points.
