Six Takeaways from F5’s Flagship AppWorld Conference
This year’s AppWorld Conference in Las Vegas featured groundbreaking F5 innovations as we prepare customers for an AI-powered future. Chief among our announcements was the introduction of the industry’s first converged application delivery and security platform for the hybrid, multicloud infrastructures of the AI era. We also announced several innovations to tame the growing complexity our customers face as they manage applications and APIs across hyper-distributed, hyper-connected, and hyper-hybrid environments. Our partners Equinix and NVIDIA took the stage to talk about separate collaborations that help bring our vision to life. We also awarded our first annual F5 Customer Innovation Award, while celebrating our 2025 North America Partner of the Year.
The conference was chock full of opportunities for participants to expand their knowledge of F5’s security and app delivery solutions, while obtaining the insights they need to advance their companies in the AI era. For those who missed it, here are six takeaways:
1. F5 introduced the industry’s most extensive application delivery and security platform for the AI era
In his opening keynote, F5 President and CEO François Locoh-Donoh unveiled the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform, the industry’s first application delivery controller (ADC) solution that fully converges high-performance load balancing and traffic management with advanced app and API security capabilities into a single platform. The platform delivers on he promise of a new generation of ADCs—and is built to handle the massive amounts of data, complex traffic patterns, and new attack vectors in the AI era.
F5 President and CEO François Locoh-Donoh introduces the F5 Application and Security Delivery Platform during his keynote speech at AppWorld 2025 in LasVegas.
Within three years, 80% of enterprise apps will AI-powered, according to F5 research. Locoh-Donou called F5’s new platform “a giant leap forward” at a time when AI adoption is accelerating. “The F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform embodies everything we believe ADC 3.0 solutions deserve and require,” he said. “It is a giant step in our quest to make it ridiculously easy to deliver and secure and optimize any application, anywhere.”
2. We showcased our AI assistant, which we’re adding to all of our major product families.
At this year’s AppWorld, we introduced the AI assistant for F5 NGINX One, furthering our efforts to simplify at-scale app security and delivery. The AI assistant is powered by a large language model specifically trained for NGINX and offers real-time value and contextually aware guidance to teams managing NGINX instances. Customers can access the AI assistant directly from the NGINX One Console, obtaining precise, step-by-step guidance that trims hours from troubleshooting and routine maintenance.
The announcement comes on the heels of our AI assistant for F5 Distributed Cloud Services introduced in December 2024. Already, more than half of our Distributed Cloud Services customers are using the AI assistant to identify and mitigate threats in real-time, query network performance status, and help with other complex tasks. We’ll also be bringing an AI assistant to F5 BIG-IP later this year—giving all F5 customers the ability to leverage the power of AI to simplify the management and the protection of their applications and APIs.
3. We discussed our roadmap for unlocking an AI-powered future.
In his keynote that followed Locoh-Donou’s opening speech, F5’s Chief Innovation Officer Kunal Anand detailed F5’s product roadmap, which includes new solutions that further enhance the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform. Anand announced that the F5 AI Gateway is now generally available to help customers deliver and secure their AI-powered solutions. The AI Gateway serves as a central nervous system for AI in the enterprise, helping organizations streamline interactions between applications, APIs, and large language models (LLMs) and drive wider enterprise AI adoption.
We also announced powerful new additions to the F5 VELOS product line. These additions are designed to help service providers and large enterprises optimize modern applications required for AI, safeguard workloads, and reduce downtime across single and multi-tenant application environments. Part of the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform, VELOS reduces complexity of large-scale AI deployments by converging availability, management, and security.
4. We’re partnering with trailblazing companies to bring our vision to life.
Anand also emphasized F5’s collaborations with leading-edge partners to bring our converged platform to life. Together with Maryam Zand, Vice President of Ecosystems at Equinix, Anand described a new joint solution from F5 and Equinix that combines the benefits of F5 Distributed Cloud Services and F5 Distributed Cloud Customer Edge devices on the Equinix Network Edge Platform. The joint offering, which will be available later this year, will significantly simplify deployment and offer secure applications and workloads across hybrid, multicloud environments.
Anand also invited Kevin Deierling, Senior Vice President of Networking at NVIDIA, onto the stage to discuss our two companies’ recent collaboration to deploy F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes deployed on NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs. F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes deployed on BlueField-3 DPUs simplifies integration, enhances security, and improves performance for service providers and large enterprises looking to build out large-scale AI infrastructures. It is part of a continuing relationship between F5 and Nvidia as the two companies work together to unlock the full potential of AI deployments.
5. We honored Xcel Energy with our inaugural Customer Innovation Award.
F5 gave its first Customer Innovation Award to Xcel Energy, a utility company based in Minneapolis, Minn. An F5 customer for nearly a decade, uses F5 BIG-IP products and F5 Distributed Cloud Services to strengthen security across a dispersed environment at a time when the energy industry has been undergoing a period of disruption. Xcel Energy has achieved particular success with F5 Distributed Cloud Web App Scanning, a service that dynamically and continuously scans external attack surfaces to uncover exposed web apps and APIs.
F5's Chief Revenue Officer Chad Whalen congratulates Colin Barr of Xcel Energy upon winning F5's inaugural Customer Innovation Award.
F5 Chief Revenue Officer Chad Whalen awarded the honor to Xcel Energy , recognizing the utility for pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with F5 solutions. “Xcel Energy is a wonderful example of how enterprising customers can extend F5 functionality to address the needs of their organizations and take the lead in their industries,” Whalen said.
6. WorldTech IT was named F5 North America Partner of the Year.
We honored WorldTech IT, a leading F5 professional and managed services company, as our North America Partner of the Year. The award recognizes WorldTech IT for its exceptional commitment to growth and innovation. WorldTech IT has been innovating with Cloud.Red, its platform for F5 BIG-IP and F5 NGINX monitoring and observability. It has experienced exponential growth as it shelpcustomers enhance security, streamline operations, and maximize F5 investments.
In the coming months, we’ll be taking AppWorld to other cities around the world starting in April with the AppWorld Public Sector Symposium in Washington, D.C. and AppWorld Dubai. To learn more, check out our AppWorld webpage.