Norton VPN enters the AI agent space with 'first truly AI native' VPN for agents | Tech Radar
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Norton VPN enters the AI agent space with 'first truly AI native' VPN for agents
The software is currently available on the Gen Agent Trust Hub for a limited number of customers
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Norton VPN has launched "first truly AI native" VPN for Agents
It is fundamentally integrated with AI agent activities
Norton VPN has launched VPN for Agents, its AI-native VPN built for autonomous AI.
Traditionally, the best VPNs have been designed for users browsing the web, forcing AI agents to share your VPN and internet settings. The setup so far hasn’t been ideal, with AI Agents performing tasks on your behalf, either not being able to utilise VPNs when necessary or, at best, necessarily dictating your host’s entire VPN settings.
Norton VPN's new software promises to be "the first truly AI-native VPN for Agents" — the first to be fundamentally integrated with AI agent activities, with no need for client apps or CLI installation, and including innovative features such as multi-tunnel and multi-location support built in.
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"With VPN for Agents, we've delivered two industry firsts: multi-tunnel technology that lets agents operate independently across different countries simultaneously, and an AI-native architecture that requires zero installation,” Himmat Bains, product lead at Norton VPN, tells Tech Radar.
Developed in a collaboration between Gen Threat Labs and Gen AI Foundry — Norton's parent company, Gen Digital's arm entirely focused on AI — the VPN for Agents is currently available through the Gen Agent Trust Hub to a limited number of customers.
As Howie Xu, chief AI and innovation officer at Gen Digital, pointed out in a post on Linked In, "the world has about 8 billion people, but soon there will be far more than 8 billion agents."
In a crowded VPN landscape, both human and agent traffic are currently routed through the same VPN paths, making the experience more cumbersome for both.
VPN for Agents offers a smart and elegant solution by creating an encrypted channel designed for the fast and multi-platform communication patterns of AI-powered autonomous agents.
Specifically, the software routes agents through temporary, region-specific identities using isolated VPN containers powered by Docker, enabling them to establish temporary VPN channels at will from any location they choose.
This way, each agent and each task can have its own separate VPN connection without interfering with yours. This also means agents can handle many separate VPN connections simultaneously in a variety of different locations at the same time.
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For example, they can carry simultaneous requests at different websites routed through the US, China and Iran, with each constituting a separate Docker-based VPN instance running independently.
The approach makes the system more flexible, more powerful, and likely more secure than solutions based on a single permanent VPN client.
Other providers, including Express VPN and Windscribe, have recently developed solutions to provide VPN facilities to the agentic world, but have specific use-cases.
Windscribe, for example, is designed mainly for Open Claw systems that are running independently on a dedicated machine, targeting a specific isolated environment.
Express VPN's solution enables AI agents to change the Express VPN app settings directly. But, while useful, the solution is arguably less elegant, with the sense of creating a workaround rather than a fundamental solution.
Instead of using a single, large system-wide VPN, Norton's VPN for Agents creates a completely new, instant VPN tunnel dedicated exclusively to each individual request. This 'sandbox' VPN is opened within a temporary mini-environment; the tasks are carried out; then the container is permanently deleted, and the VPN instance disappears.
Bains, who’s already revitalised Norton VPN with a range of implementations since taking over in late 2025, confirms developing the VPN for Agents app required a new whole perspective on VPNs: "These weren’t incremental improvements, they required us to rethink what a VPN can be.”
"This is all while we continue with our Norton VPN roadmap with many exciting updates due in the coming weeks," he adds.
Whether or not Norton VPN’s solution is the best agentic VPN for you is up to your own use case. But one thing is for sure: Agents just received a powerful new upgrade for those who need it.
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Silvia Iacovcich is a tech journalist with over five years of experience in the field, including AI, cybersecurity, and fintech. She has written for various publications focusing on the evolving regulatory landscape of AI, digital behavior, web 3, and blockchain, as well as social media privacy and security regulations.
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