Palo Alto Projects Double-Digit Growth as AI Drives Cybersecurity Spending

By Elias Schisgall

Palo Alto Networks swung to a loss in the fiscal fourth quarter, but posted higher revenue and projected double-digit revenue growth in the current fiscal year as customers continue to boost their cybersecurity spending in response to advancements in artificial-intelligence.

The cybersecurity company on Tuesday said it is expecting revenue to rise between 23% and 24% to a range of $14.1 billion to $14.2 billion in fiscal 2027. Analysts polled by FactSet are expecting $13.84 billion in revenue.

Chief Executive Officer Nikesh Arora said the results and outlook reflect growing recognition among enterprises that they need to modernize their cyber defenses to meet the capabilities of ever-more-powerful AI models, especially following the release of Anthropic's Mythos earlier this year.

"In that context, people are gravitating towards the largest players in the industry and looking at us to provide the antidotes to this development in AI," Arora said in an interview.

Palo Alto also forecast adjusted earnings between $4.16 and $4.19 a share for the fiscal year, ahead of analyst expectations of $4.10 a share. The company guided for next-generation security annual recurring revenue between $11.075 billion and $11.175 billion, representing 22% to 23% growth.

In the fourth quarter, Palo Alto had a loss of $282 million, or 35 cents a share, compared with a profit of $254 million, or 36 cents a share, a year earlier.

Stripping out certain one-time items, adjusted earnings were $1.02 a share. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting 98 cents a share.

Revenue rose 34% to $3.41 billion, beating analyst expectations of $3.35 billion. Subscription and support revenue surged to $2.67 billion from $1.96 billion, while product revenue grew to $738 million from $574 million.

The company said next-generation security ARR rose 63% year-over-year to $9.1 billion. Remaining performance obligations were $21.2 billion, up 34%.

Palo Alto also notched around 220 net "platformizations" during the quarter, referring to customers who upgrade diffuse cybersecurity measures into a single platform. That figure is roughly double the company's platformizations during the third quarter, and indicates that customers are favoring integrated cybersecurity solutions as they adapt to AI, Arora said.

"From a technological perspective, it is becoming evident that if your fragmented products don't talk to each other, then AI is going to get the better of you, because you need your infrastructure to be able to respond at AI-level or machine-level speed," Arora said. "That can only happen if your products are not fragmented or integrated."

For the current fiscal first quarter, the company is expecting adjusted earnings between 96 cents and 98 cents a share on revenue of $3.3 billion to $3.31 billion.

Analysts currently expect 93 cents a share in adjusted earnings on $3.22 billion in revenue.

First-quarter next-generation security ARR is projected between $9.54 billion and $9.56 billion.

The company on Tuesday also announced that it had acquired Console, a company that provides a platform to manage agentic AI operations. Financial terms of that deal weren't disclosed.

The acquisition was Palo Alto's second deal during the quarter, following its announcement of a planned acquisition of the observability platform Embrace in July. Other recent acquisitions include CyberArk for $25 billion and the observability platform Chronosphere for $3.35 billion.

Write to Elias Schisgall at elias.schisgall@wsj.com

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September 01, 2026 16:36 ET (20:36 GMT)