Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API

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.

Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API

A public OpenAPI document, ten detection types in one call, tool-call scanning, a remote MCP server, rotating API keys and OAuth roles suit teams already on Strata Cloud Manager. Access needs Software NGFW credits bought through sales, with no public price, trial or self-serve signup, and payloads flagged malicious are kept for up to 10 years.

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

Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API

1. Send x-pan-token and an ai_profile with profile_name or profile_id on every scan. Both come from Strata Cloud Manager, and a key works only in its own region
2. Put earlier turns first in contents. Only the last element is scanned, and the rest is context
3. Read action (allow or block) and category, then check timeout and error, because a detector that failed is reported in errors with a 200
4. Keep synchronous requests under 2 MB and asynchronous ones under 5 MB and 25 items, and fetch at most 5 scan or report IDs a call, 10 calls a minute
5. For MCP, connect to /mcp on the regional host with x-pan-token and x-pan-profile headers, and call pan_inline_scan yourself before and after generation