Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields) vs Cisco AI Defense Inspection API

Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields)

Prompt Shields checks up to five retrieved documents for indirect injection, not only the user prompt. Needs an Azure subscription with a card, a resource and a region that has the feature, before the first call.

Cisco AI Defense Inspection API

Per-connection API keys with expiry, revocation and regeneration, published limits of 60,000 calls a minute, weekly dated release notes and a one-year retention statement suit companies already on Cisco Security Cloud Control. Access needs a subscription bought through sales, with no public price or trial for the API, and the developer changelog has one entry from February 2025.

Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields)

1. Send retrieved pages and tool results in the documents array of shieldPrompt, not in userPrompt, so document attacks are reported separately
2. Call text:shieldPrompt over REST with api-version=2024-09-01. The Python SDK 1.0.0 has no method for it
3. Keep each request under 10,000 characters across prompt and documents, and split long tool results
4. Create the resource in a region that lists Prompt Shields, since not every region has it
5. On F0 you get 5 requests a second. Queue checks or move to S0 before load testing

Cisco AI Defense Inspection API

1. Send the key in X-Cisco-AI-Defense-API-Key to POST /api/v1/inspect/chat on the regional host where the tenant was created. US, Europe and Asia Pacific hosts differ
2. If the connection has a policy, enabled_rules in the request is ignored. Pass enabled_rules only for connections with no policy
3. The API never blocks anything itself. Read is_safe and action in the response and enforce the decision in your own code
4. On 429, wait and retry. The organisation has gone over one million tokens in parallel or 60,000 calls a minute
5. Don't request the Toxicity rule. It was removed on 16 September 2026, and the Safety rules such as Hate Speech, Harassment and Profanity replace it