Cloudflare has officially introduced the Cloudflare Application Confidence Score, a groundbreaking and transparent metric designed to help enterprises evaluate the safety, security, and compliance of SaaS applications and Generative AI (Gen AI) tools at scale. This innovation is part of Cloudflare’s new AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) features within the Cloudflare One SASE platform, empowering IT and security teams to quickly measure risk levels of third-party AI and SaaS apps and enforce stronger security policies.
The rapid adoption of AI-powered productivity tools and SaaS platforms is transforming the workplace, enhancing collaboration and efficiency. However, this surge also fuels the rise of Shadow IT and Shadow AI, where employees often use unauthorized apps that may compromise data privacy, cybersecurity, and compliance.
Key Risks of Shadow AI and Shadow IT
Data leakage: Gen AI applications may train on user inputs, exposing confidential business data to competitors or hackers via prompt injection attacks.
Weak security practices: Apps may store sensitive data for extended periods, share information with third parties, or suffer from data breaches.
Compliance violations: AI outputs can be biased, unsafe, or inaccurate, leading to poor decisions and regulatory risks.
Vendor instability: Applications could shut down or go bankrupt, leaving sensitive data vulnerable.
Why Cloudflare’s Confidence Score Matters
Instead of resorting to blanket AI bans that stifle innovation, Cloudflare provides a smarter solution: a transparent scoring system that helps organizations manage the growing risks of AI applications. The Application Confidence Score and Gen-AI Confidence Score (each measured out of 5 points) evaluate:
SaaS maturity and security standards
Gen AI-specific risks such as data retention, model training practices, and AI output safety
Unlike black-box AI risk assessments, Cloudflare’s scores are based on an objective rubric, publicly maintained in the Cloudflare developer documentation.
Cloudflare is partnering with AI researchers, legal experts, SOC teams, and cybersecurity professionals to refine its scoring methodology. This ensures that the metric evolves with the fast-changing AI and cybersecurity landscape, promoting transparency, accountability, and extensibility. With this initiative, Cloudflare is not only bridging a critical security gap in SASE but also setting a new industry standard for AI safety, responsible AI adoption, and enterprise cybersecurity.
