Sunil Frida, Chief Marketing Officer Frida will lead Zscaler’s global marketing organization, overseeing product marketing, brand strategy, demand generation, corporate communications, and go-to-market execution to further accelerate the company’s leadership in the Zero Trust and AI security market. SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZS), the leader in cloud security, today announced the appointment of Sunil Frida as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). In this role, Fr ...

Core Insights - Cisco Systems' Security revenues decreased by 2% year over year to $1.98 billion in Q1 FY26, impacted by a shift to cloud subscriptions and lower revenues from older products [1][10] - New and refreshed products, which make up about one-third of Cisco's security portfolio, are expected to drive top-line growth, with mid-teens growth in demand for next-gen firewalls [2] - Splunk's annualized recurring revenues and product remaining performance obligations grew in double digits, enhancing Cisco's threat detection capabilities through integration with Cisco Extended Detection and Response (XDR) [3][10] Financial Performance - The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Q2 FY26 service revenues is $2.16 billion, indicating a 2.6% growth compared to the same quarter last year [4] - The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Q2 FY26 earnings is $1.02 per share, suggesting an 8.5% growth from the previous year [15] - The Zacks Consensus Estimate for FY26 earnings is $4.10 per share, indicating a 7.6% growth from FY25 [16] Competitive Landscape - Cisco faces significant competition in the security domain from Fortinet and Okta [5] - Fortinet is rapidly advancing its AI-powered security operations, with over 20 AI-driven solutions and a focus on secure AI usage [6] - Okta's offerings include AI-powered capabilities that are expected to drive a CAGR of 16% in revenues from FY23 to FY26, with projected revenues of $2.906 billion to $2.908 billion for FY26 [7] Stock Performance and Valuation - Cisco shares have appreciated by 30.8% over the past year, outperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector's return of 24.2% [8] - Cisco's stock is trading at a premium, with a trailing 12-month price/book ratio of 6.49X compared to the industry average of 6.13X [12] - Cisco currently holds a Zacks Rank 3 (Hold) [16]

Palo Alto Networks (PANW) landed a multibillion-dollar deal last week that could reshape its competitive moat in the AI security market. The cybersecurity giant announced an expansion of its Google Cloud partnership that goes far beyond a typical vendor agreement. Palo Alto has committed to migrating key internal workloads to Alphabet's (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google infrastructure while embedding its Prisma AIRS security platform directly into Google's AI development tools and cloud services. The deal addresses ...

Core Viewpoint - ServiceNow has agreed to acquire cybersecurity startup Armis for approximately $7.75 billion in cash, aiming to capitalize on the increasing demand for AI security [1] Group 1 - The acquisition price of Armis is set at about $7.75 billion [1] - This strategic move is intended to leverage the growing market for AI security solutions [1]

Group 1 - Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) has formed a strategic partnership with JD Cloud to create an international platform for managing, deploying, and scaling AI workloads [1][2] - The partnership aims to streamline the process of running trained AI models, with a goal to reduce AI inference workloads by up to 80% [2] - The new cloud platform will incorporate enhanced security features, including Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, and global CDN [2] Group 2 - Wall Street analysts have a positive outlook on Cloudflare, with Stifel reiterating a Buy rating and Mizuho Securities setting a price target of $280 [3][4] - Stifel emphasizes the growing importance of AI security and sees Cloudflare as well-positioned to benefit from the increasing deployment of AI technologies [4] - Cloudflare's Workers AI platform is highlighted as a key component in powering AI workloads [5]

Prediction: Picture bigger shifts toward on-chain intelligence with deterministic, verifiable rules taking over smart contract-based governance. The application will scan code in near real-time, spot logic bugs and exploits instantly, and give immediate debugging feedback. The next big unicorn will be an innovative onchain security firm that will 100x the safety game.AI security and blockchain development tools are getting scary good. Real-time fraud detection, 95% accurate transaction Bitcoin labeling, and ...

We’re opening applications for the next two rounds of the Anthropic Fellows Program, beginning in May and July 2026.We provide funding, compute, and direct mentorship to researchers and engineers to work on real safety and security projects for four months. https://t.co/DoskdFTJSb ...

Financial Performance and Key Metrics - Fiscal 2025 revenue grew 15% year over year to $9.22 billion [2] - Next Generation Security (ARR) increased 32% year over year to $5.58 billion [2] - PO grew 24% year over year to $15.8 billion [2] Business Line Performance - Network Security (NGS ARR) reached $3.9 billion, a 35% year over year increase [3] - Security Operating Platform (NGS ARR) saw a 25% year over year increase, reaching $1.7 billion [3] - Cortex's XSIAM customer base more than doubled year over year, indicating strong adoption [3] Market Data and Key Metrics - The cybersecurity landscape is shifting due to the emergence of generative and agentic AI, influencing product offerings [4] Company Strategy and Industry Competition - The focus for fiscal 2025 was on evolving product offerings to support customer adoption of AI tools [4] - The launch of Prisma AIRS, a comprehensive AI security platform, was a key strategic move [4] - The intent to acquire CyberArk was announced to enhance identity security capabilities [4] Management's Comments on Operating Environment and Future Outlook - Management emphasized the importance of innovation and the role of employees in driving the company's success [5] - The company is committed to protecting customers from increasing cyber threats [5] Other Important Information - Shareholder proposals regarding executive compensation and board declassification were discussed, with mixed outcomes [10][18] Q&A Session Summary Question: Concerns about executive compensation linked to stock buybacks - A shareholder urged the board to adjust financial performance metrics to exclude the impact of share repurchases when determining executive compensation [10][11] Question: Proposal for declassifying the board - A shareholder argued that declassifying the board would improve accountability and align with best practices in corporate governance [13][14] Response from Management - The board recommended voting against the shareholder proposals, citing reasons outlined in the company's proxy statement [15]

AI Trends and Predictions - The AI industry is shifting towards specialization, with enterprises focusing on fine-tuning and specializing models for specific domains [6][8][82] - Open source technologies are driving transparency and adoption of AI agents, giving more power to enterprises and consumers [8][10] - The next wave of innovation is expected in world models, which are extremely data-intensive and will be the base layer for robotic opportunities [69][72] Challenges in AI Adoption - Agent memory is an unsolved problem, requiring agents to have persistent memory of both the user and itself [13][14][15] - Seamless communication between AI agents requires open source communication protocols [23][56] - AI security is crucial, with the potential need for a high ratio of security agents to cognitive intelligence agents [24][26] - Evaluating AI performance requires moving from academic benchmarks to real-world evaluations and reinforcement learning environments [34][38][39] Investment and Innovation - Capital investments are shifting from the model space to the agent space, driven by the focus on people and applications [58][59] - Enterprises seek AI solutions with high accuracy, small footprint, and data privacy [49][50] - Distillation, which involves making large models more efficient and smaller, is becoming important for cost-effectiveness [51][52] Enterprise Adoption Strategies - Enterprises should view model development as a software development platform, focusing on MVP and optimization over time [53][54][55] - Enterprises are adopting generative AI slower due to legacy systems and data locked in those systems [80][81] - Enterprises should focus on systems of smaller, specialized models rather than one model to solve all problems [83] Stochastic Mindset and Evaluation - AI compute is becoming more stochastic, requiring a shift in how we interface with and evaluate computers [30][32] - Verification of AI in specialized domains is challenging due to the difficulty and expense of expert verification [41] The Role of Open Source - Open source is critical for base models and communication protocols, enabling enterprises to build and compete with their own workflows [11][57] - A \$2 billion investment was raised with Nvidia's participation to support the US open source development ecosystem [11] Iteration and Mindset - Companies should iterate quickly, inspired by gradient descent algorithms, to gather information and find new opportunities [75][77] - Founders should pick a starting place that is exciting, big, and challenging enough to be worth the effort [79]

Core Insights - Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming enterprises, impacting critical workloads, cloud operations, identity systems, and collaboration tools, leading to new security challenges in evolving AI architectures [1][2]. Event Details - Check Point Software Technologies is hosting a virtual event titled "Securing the AI Transformation in a Hyperconnected World" on December 4, 2025, featuring experts from Check Point, NVIDIA, IDC, and global CISOs [2][6]. - The event aims to provide strategic insights for leaders on securing AI systems across cloud, edge, and distributed networks, rather than showcasing products [3][4]. Learning Objectives - Attendees will learn to build a unified AI-security stack across various environments, detect and prevent emerging threats from AI agents, and adopt a flexible security architecture [9]. Target Audience - The webinar is designed for CISOs, network architects, DevOps leads, CIOs, and security practitioners involved in AI deployment [6]. Company Overview - Check Point Software Technologies is a leader in digital trust protection, utilizing AI-powered cybersecurity solutions to safeguard over 100,000 organizations globally, with a focus on a prevention-first approach [7].