Over the years, I’ve supported many Gartner Market Guides across a range of security technologies. These reports don’t just capture product trends but also reflect the real-time evolution of an industry.

That’s why the latest Gartner® Market Guide for Network Security Microsegmentation stood out to me.

Microsegmentation used to be seen as complicated and only meant for the most advanced security teams. That’s changed. Today, it’s much easier to use and quicker to implement.

As more organizations of all sizes and industries build their Zero Trust strategy, they’re turning to segmentation as a key part of the foundation.

The latest Gartner report highlights this shift and confirms what many have already seen coming: microsegmentation is no longer optional.

No Zero Trust without segmentation

Zero Trust is a strategic framework, not a product or checklist. It’s grounded in the principle of “never trust, always verify,” but applying that principle inside a modern IT environment requires more than identity and access controls at the perimeter.

You can’t verify what you can’t see, and you certainly can’t enforce least-privileged access between workloads or applications without granular control.

That’s exactly where microsegmentation fits in.

Gartner is unequivocal: “Security and risk management leaders should build a microsegmentation architecture that restricts the lateral movement of malware in the network and in public and private cloud environments.”

This language isn’t just advisory. It reflects a consensus that’s been building for years. Identity, endpoint, and network defenses can reduce initial exposure. However, once a breach happens (and breaches will happen) microsegmentation becomes the control that limits blast radius and keeps attackers from moving freely through your environment.

Security and risk management leaders should build a microsegmentation architecture that restricts the lateral movement of malware in the network and in public and private cloud environments.

Microsegmentation comes of age

In the report, Gartner predicts that 25% of enterprises working toward Zero Trust will use more than one form of microsegmentation by 2027. That’s up from less than 5% today, and it signals a major acceleration in adoption in the next few years.

Why now? Today’s IT environments are growing increasingly complex. Cloud adoption, remote work, and application sprawl have all contributed to a fragmented enterprise architecture. As Gartner notes, this evolution has “prompted SRM leaders to focus on securing a growing number of increasingly fragmented perimeters.”

Microsegmentation gives those leaders a way to bring structure back to chaos with:

• Fine-grained zoning across hybrid environments

• Workload-level policies that enforce least privilege

• East-west traffic visibility that reveals hidden risks

Together, these capabilities transform Zero Trust from theory into reality, enabling controls that are adaptive, automated, and aligned to how the business actually operates.

The future of microsegmentation

What’s particularly interesting in this year’s Market Guide is how Gartner highlights the trajectory of microsegmentation beyond its initial scope. The report notes an emergence of advanced capabilities like AI-powered policy recommendations, protocol inspection, and even the potential convergence with broader cybersecurity mesh architectures.

This is not just about technology maturity or another defensive strategy. It’s about recognizing that segmentation is a key enabler of strategic security.

As Zero Trust programs mature, microsegmentation will play a broader role in supporting remote access, informing detection and response, and serving as a consistent policy enforcement layer across distributed environments.  

Gartner calls out the lack of a common control plane across most solutions today. However, they also suggest that this gap could be closed as architectures evolve toward a federated but unified model.

This is not just about technology maturity or another defensive strategy. It’s about recognizing that segmentation is a key enabler of strategic security.

The implications are significant. Microsegmentation is becoming a dynamic part of the Zero Trust operating model.

Lead with resilience, not just defense

Zero Trust is often positioned as a way to reduce risk, and it certainly does. I would argue, though, that its true value lies in something deeper: resilience.

Segmentation won’t stop every breach, but it will stop the breach from spreading. It will protect the crown jewels and buy your team time when time is most precious.

As an analyst relations director, I often get a behind-the-scenes view into how these market shifts are interpreted by both technology vendors and enterprise buyers. What I see now is a moment of convergence. Zero Trust strategy, real-world threats, and architectural change are all aligning around microsegmentation.

CISOs who recognize this and act will be the ones who lead their organizations through uncertainty with clarity and control.