Dell’Oro Group says the secure access service edge (SASE) market grew 21% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, exceeding US$3 billion in quarterly revenue, as enterprises increased spending on cloud-delivered security, branch modernisation and AI governance.
In its latest SASE and SD-WAN report, the research firm said the quarter showed SASE being treated as a strategic platform purchase, with organisations funding secure service edge (SSE) capabilities, SD-WAN and policy controls linked to AI adoption “in the same buying motion”.
“AI is changing the SASE discussion from access and inspection to governance, data protection, and control over agents and machine traffic,” said Mauricio Sanchez, senior director of enterprise security and networking at Dell’Oro Group. “A 21 percent Y/Y quarter shows that SASE is not waiting for a future AI refresh cycle; it is already absorbing the early security and networking requirements created by AI adoption,” he said.
Dell’Oro reported SSE revenue increased 22% year-on-year, with buyers expanding beyond web and private access into SaaS control, data protection, AI usage governance and agent policy. Over the same period, access router revenue declined 10% year-on-year, which the firm attributed to continued shifts away from standalone routing toward SD-WAN overlays, secure branch customer premises equipment (CPE) and “SASE-aligned” branch platforms.
The report said Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Cato Networks and Versa Networks were the most “balanced” suppliers among the top 10 SASE vendors, with both SD-WAN and SSE contributing meaningful revenue streams.
Dell’Oro forecast SASE would remain on a double-digit growth path through 2026, with “SSE-first” rollouts the most common entry point and SD-WAN supported by branch modernisation and refresh cycles.
Dell’Oro said its SASE & SD-WAN report includes manufacturers’ revenue covering the SASE and access router markets and analyses SASE by technology (SD-WAN networking and SSE security) and implementation (unified and disaggregated).
