Gigamon eyes AI-led surge in network observability

Gigamon highlighted growth in the network observability market and expanded its AI-related product line. IDC forecasts the sector will reach USD $4.39 billion by 2029.

Demand is rising as businesses expand AI, cloud and security projects across hybrid environments. Citing IDC figures, Gigamon said the overall market is growing at a compound annual rate of 6.5 per cent, while segments tied to AI, cloud and security are expected to grow at two to three times that pace.

Network observability tools give IT and security teams visibility into traffic moving across corporate infrastructure. That visibility has become more important as workloads spread across data centres, virtual machines, public cloud platforms and containers, and as more traffic is encrypted or moves laterally within networks.

According to Gigamon, traditional visibility tools often struggle in those conditions, particularly with East-West traffic inside networks. Its approach centres on network-derived telemetry, including metadata, packets and flows, which is then fed into security, cloud and observability systems.

Market Shift

The IDC forecast points to a broader change in how buyers are approaching observability. Rather than focusing only on uptime and application monitoring, organisations are increasingly looking for tools that can track performance, security and cost across distributed infrastructure.

AI workloads are also driving that shift by increasing network traffic volumes and adding operational complexity. Companies deploying generative AI and other automated systems are under pressure to understand how those services interact with cloud infrastructure, internal applications and security controls.

Mark Leary, Research Director, Network Observability and Automation at IDC, said the rise of cloud services has changed the baseline for visibility requirements.

"Today's network observability solutions must ensure cloud computing and networking services are afforded the same level of visibility and control as on-premises systems," said Mark Leary, Research Director, Network Observability and Automation at IDC. "As AI-driven workloads accelerate and environments become more distributed, organizations require deeper access to network-derived telemetry to manage performance, security, and cost. Solutions that can deliver this comprehensive, end-to-end visibility across hybrid and multi-cloud environments will be critical to maintaining operational resilience and supporting successful digital transformation."

IDC's view aligns with two trends Gigamon identified: a growing emphasis on end-to-end experience visibility across employees, customers, partners and connected devices, and the rise of cloud as the main environment where observability tools are now being applied.

AI Products

Alongside the market data, Gigamon outlined two AI-focused products aimed at security and IT teams. One, Gigamon AI Traffic Intelligence, is designed to provide visibility into generative AI and large language model traffic across more than 40 engines.

The other, Gigamon Insights, is described as an agentic AI application built for network-derived telemetry. It is intended to help teams investigate incidents and respond more quickly in distributed environments.

Gigamon AI Traffic Intelligence is available now, while Gigamon Insights is in limited access for global customers. Both products sit within the company's Deep Observability Pipeline, its main platform for collecting and distributing network telemetry.

Shane Buckley, President and Chief Executive Officer of Gigamon, said customer requirements are changing as AI becomes a larger part of enterprise infrastructure.

"AI is reshaping enterprise infrastructure and raising the stakes for network observability," said Shane Buckley, President and Chief Executive Officer, Gigamon. "Organisations can no longer rely on traditional monitoring approaches and are demanding complete visibility across all their environments and workloads. Gigamon is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation, helping customers unlock the full potential of AI while reducing risk and complexity."

Gigamon serves more than 4,000 organisations worldwide, including 83 of the Fortune 100, as well as mobile network operators and public sector bodies. Its focus is on giving customers access to traffic data that can be used to detect threats, investigate performance issues and monitor activity across hybrid cloud systems.

The commercial opportunity reflects a wider realignment in enterprise IT spending. As more organisations move critical systems into mixed on-premises and cloud environments, and as AI tools generate new forms of traffic and risk, spending is shifting towards products that provide a clearer view of activity across those settings.

For suppliers such as Gigamon, that creates an opening in a market that is growing steadily overall, but faster in areas linked to AI, cloud and security. IDC forecasts the network observability sector will reach USD $4.39 billion by 2029.