Dubai, United Arab Emirates, October 15, 2026 , NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) said it has introduced new capabilities intended to help enterprises adopt agentic artificial intelligence using what it describes as secure, in-place, zero-copy data activation.
In a release announcing the updates, the company said its NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE) is designed to support discovery, understanding, governance, and operationalization of enterprise data where it resides. NetApp also said it expanded integration with Commvault, linking the NetApp Platform to Commvault recovery orchestration workflows to help customers detect attacks earlier and recover data it describes as cleaner.
NetApp framed the move around what it called a mismatch between how enterprise data estates are typically built and the needs of AI agents deployed in production. The company said data in many environments is fragmented across file, object, cloud, and on-premises and sovereign environments, governed with inconsistent controls, and activated through pipelines that it said copy, move, or transform data before use. NetApp said that copy-first approach can introduce latency and cost and can raise compliance risks, while also potentially delivering answers that are stale by the time they reach a model or agent.
What NetApp said the updates do
According to NetApp, the latest Platform updates are meant to move enterprises away from what it described as copy-first architectures toward a “zero-copy operating model” that keeps governance and protection in place.
NetApp AI Data Engine
- NetApp said AIDE is a core intelligence service within the NetApp Platform’s AI Data Services layer.
- The company said it is expanding availability of metadata discovery across the full enterprise data estate, including NetApp ONTAP and StorageGRID environments as well as non-NetApp storage.
- NetApp said the update enables discovery and understanding of data in place across NFS, SMB, and S3 repositories, which it said can help reduce security risk, optimize storage, accelerate data migrations, and identify AI-ready data.
- NetApp also said it is previewing further AIDE innovations, including expanded AI-powered data understanding, deeper governance intelligence, open analytics integrations with analytics engines such as Starburst and Onehouse.AI, and new agentic services intended to securely turn data into actionable AI context at scale.
Expanded NetApp and Commvault joint solution
- NetApp said the updated joint solution is designed to protect and restore data used for AI workloads.
- NetApp described features including near-real-time threat detection, deeper scans it said are meant to uncover evasive threats, and what it called cleanroom validation with advanced AI threat detection technology in an isolated environment.
- The company said it connects NetApp Platform ransomware protection signals on primary storage directly to Commvault recovery workflows via the Commvault console, which it said is intended to support recovery “in minutes rather than days or weeks” without reinfection.
- NetApp said it aims to help reduce “mean time to clean recover (MTCR).”
Company statements
NetApp attributed the motivation to the need for faster and safer transformation of data into intelligence. It quoted Asad Khan, Senior Vice President and General Manager, AI at NetApp, saying that NetApp’s approach is intended to activate data in place with governance, resiliency, and openness, and to help give agents trusted business context while strengthening recovery foundations.
NetApp also quoted Pranay Ahlawat, Chief Technology and AI Officer at Commvault, describing the collaboration as a way to integrate NetApp ransomware detection and immutable data protection with Commvault clean recovery to accelerate response and restore trusted data. The release also quoted Shari Lava, GVP of AI Research at IDC, stating that NetApp’s approach illustrates a shift toward connecting data discovery, understanding, governance, activation, and cyber resilience at the storage layer.
Forward-looking note
NetApp said its statements about unreleased offerings and future plans are for informational purposes only and are subject to change without notice, adding that they should not be relied upon for purchasing or other decisions.
