Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike are winners from the turmoil around the AI labs, because no one is going to trust one of those labs to defend them. x.comÂ
Colin Tedards
Founder of The Investor Channel & Equity Empire
Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike are clear AI winners the market is sleeping on, because AI makes cyber offense 10x better, faster and cheaper and defense 10x more valuable to every CISO. Both already sit on endpoint, cloud, identity and application telemetry, a data and integration moat nobody can replicate overnight. They must shift from human-speed to AI-speed detection and resolution, but they have the leadership, M&A firepower, customer trust and channel distribution to win big. x.comÂ
CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks benefit from AI because it creates more security problems, so companies will need more advanced cybersecurity, not less. More than half of enterprise AI use happens outside IT oversight. Per JPMorgan, both are in good shape after Anthropic launched its Claude Mythos Preview security tool: instead of competing with them, Anthropic made them partners, which JPMorgan reads as a sign established vendors are essential to AI-driven defense, not replaceable by it. … Show more
Cloudflare has three AI-driven trends working in its favor. AI will uncover more vulnerabilities; protection against more AI bots, agents and crawlers is needed; and its developer platform, including Workers, is becoming the default for agent-related development. CrowdStrike is not a favorite. x.comÂ
Cybersecurity looks like AI's next major use case, making CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks and Okta stocks to own now. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said cybersecurity will be a major use case for AI, and that signal from Huang, more than any personal call, is the reason to pay attention to the group. x.com x.com x.comÂ
CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks should be enormous winners as agentic AI makes cybersecurity every enterprise's top priority, even ahead of AI investment. Threats from rogue internal agents and adversaries mean firms will rush to upgrade security, move to best-of-breed vendors and sharply raise budgets. Expected acceleration at leaders like CrowdStrike over the next 2-6 quarters looks far too low. CrowdStrike is the most advanced; Palo Alto is also favored, though some easy money is made. … Show more
CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks are at all-time highs despite no real signs that AI is boosting cybersecurity, while Zscaler tumbled as mixed guidance overshadowed strong Q3 results. x.comÂ
CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks win either way on AI. More AI means more attack surface, while less AI means budgets rotate back to security. x.comÂ
Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike and Fortinet, the cybersecurity leaders, are long-term winners in AI and won't be displaced by it. Palo Alto is up 23% this year, CrowdStrike 20% and Fortinet 48%, and it is no coincidence that their CEOs have been buying stock. x.comÂ
Anthropic and OpenAI's inevitable move into cybersecurity threatens CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks' valuations. They look like the market's biggest bubble stocks right now; CrowdStrike trades at 40x ARR despite 25% growth and negative GAAP EBIT. x.com x.comÂ
AI-powered attacks are spreading so fast that companies are unlikely to cut security budgets, even if they slow broader AI spending. The latest wave hit governments, banks, hospitals, grocery chains and businesses, while AI finds vulnerabilities and breaks in around the clock. That is why Cloudflare, Zscaler, CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks rose as broader AI concerns hit tech shares. x.com x.comÂ