How I got a threat-classification AI running on-agent in under 8ms — no GPU, no cloud (opens in new tab)

When I tell people that Watch Cortex classifies threats in under 8ms on-agent — no cloud call, no GPU, no round-trip — the first question is usually: how? The second question is: why bother? Just send it to the cloud. Let me answer the second one first, because it explains all the engineering decisions that follow. Why on-agent matters The cloud-call model for security agents has a fundamental problem: it fails when you need it most. Network incidents, backend outages, high-latency connection...