SASE Adoption Accelerates as 67% of Enterprises Plan SD-WAN Integration by End of 2026

The Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) market is experiencing accelerated adoption, with Gartner reporting that 67% of enterprises plan to integrate SD-WAN with SASE capabilities by the end of 2026. The market for SD-WAN with SASE integration is projected to reach $13.7 billion by 2027.

Six key trends are shaping SASE evolution in 2026, according to HPE's networking community. AI-driven SASE is moving platforms from reactive to predictive security, with AIOps and agentic AI providing continuous telemetry that feeds machine learning models identifying early indicators of degradation, misconfigurations, or suspicious activity before they escalate.

Universal Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) has evolved from a niche feature to a foundational requirement, with organizations now expecting ZTNA to extend uniformly across all users, device types, and application patterns—including private, SaaS, and legacy applications. This shift ensures zero trust principles are applied consistently regardless of where an application runs or from where a user connects.

IoT security has emerged as a critical SASE use case, with AI-powered Network Access Control features providing deep observability and authentication for accurate device profiling and behavior analysis. The "coffee shop networking" model—emphasizing cloud-managed, wireless-first, internet-first experiences with zero trust enforcement—is moving from concept to mainstream deployment.

The market saw significant consolidation in 2025, with HPE's acquisition of Juniper and Arista's purchase of VMware's Velocloud SD-WAN reshuffling competitive positions. Key players including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Arista, HPE, and Versa Networks are now competing to deliver integrated networking and security solutions.

Data sovereignty has emerged as a non-negotiable consideration, with SASE evaluations increasingly including questions about Points of Presence locations, telemetry storage, and regional processing requirements—driving demand for sovereign SASE deployment options.