THE INVESTOR CALL / TECHNOLOGY & THE INVESTMENT STORY / OCTOBER 13, 2026
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AI AGENTS / CRWD + PANW THE NEW WORKFORCE |  |
AI is moving from answering questions to taking action. Who makes it safe enough for business - and which listed companies could benefit?
Imagine a company on a Monday morning. Before the first employee arrives, an AI agent has reviewed overnight orders. Another has prepared software updates. A third has organized customer requests.
This is a hypothetical scene, but the business ambition is easy to understand: give people a head start. Less time assembling information can mean more time serving customers, improving products and making decisions.
What can these agents access - |
That question leads us to the companies building the controls behind the next stage of AI adoption: CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks.
Opening scene: hypothetical. Research cutoff: October 13, 2026. Financial data: latest reported July-ended quarters. Investment conclusions are editorial interpretation.
01 / WHEN SOFTWARE GETS RESPONSIBILITY The assistant now |  |
A useful agent needs access. A dependable business needs boundaries.
At our imagined company, a sales manager asks an agent to prepare a customer proposal. It gathers product details, checks prices and reviews the customer's previous orders. In minutes, a draft is ready.
A chatbot can suggest what to write. An agent connected to business tools can retrieve records, edit a file or send a message. Its reach depends on the systems it connects to and the permissions it receives. That makes access a business decision.
Give it an identity Each agent should have a recognizable identity and an accountable owner. The company needs to distinguish the proposal assistant from an agent updating software, and understand whose instructions each one follows. | Give it only the access it needs Least privilege means limiting access to the task. Our proposal agent may read approved product prices and one customer's order history. It should not automatically be able to change prices, browse unrelated confidential files or approve its own proposal. | |
Keep a person at the decision point The agent prepares the document; the sales manager approves it before delivery. Higher-impact actions need clear approval rules. Permissions can also expire when a task ends, reducing the access left behind. | Make the work traceable Monitoring records what an agent accessed and changed. If it behaves unexpectedly, the business needs a way to pause it, revoke access and investigate. Together, these controls can make wider deployment more practical. | |
Technical context: Palo Alto Networks, "Secure AI Agents," January 9, 2026 [3]. The proposal workflow is an illustrative scenario, not a reported customer case.
02 / THE COMPANIES BUILDING THE CONTROLS Two companies. |  |
Established security platforms are extending their role into AI-agent protection.
CROWDSTRIKE / NASDAQ: CRWD On September 2, CrowdStrike introduced its Agentic Identity Provider. The company says it registers agents, gives them verifiable identities and limits access through short-lived permissions tied to a task. Actions are linked to the person or system behind them. [1] Its expanded OpenAI partnership, announced the same day, aims to protect Codex agents through Falcon Guardian and bring additional cyber reasoning into Falcon. CrowdStrike describes visibility into agent behavior and responses to unauthorized activity. These are vendor announcements; they do not establish the revenue attributable to those capabilities. [2] For a buyer, the attraction is coordination: identify an agent, control its access and monitor its activity within an existing security environment. CrowdStrike sells subscription modules and offers Falcon Flex, a flexible purchasing arrangement across its platform. [5, 8] |
PALO ALTO NETWORKS / NASDAQ: PANW Palo Alto Networks describes controls that discover agents, identify their owners and limit access to resources such as databases. Permissions are scoped to a task and can be removed afterward. That addresses the proposal assistant's practical access problem. [3] A September 30 update to its Idira identity platform describes policies restricting which tools agents may use, alongside verifiable identities and short-lived tokens for Google Gemini agents. Separately, its Koi acquisition supports plans to extend agent protection through Prisma AIRS and Cortex XDR. Confirm what is available before treating an announced integration as a delivered product. [4, 7] Customers purchase software, subscriptions and support across its portfolio. Our investment interpretation: an existing customer relationship can provide a route to sell more protection as AI use expands. Whether it does so profitably must be tested against adoption and financial results. |
Sources: [1-4, 7] product announcements and technical updates; [5-6] financial releases; [8] Falcon Flex. Numbered source references appear in the research section below.
03 / FROM A PILOT TO A LARGER CONTRACT The opportunity |  |
A successful AI pilot could expand security demand. The financial evidence still matters.
Back at our hypothetical company, the pilot has worked. Management wants to deploy agents in more departments. The security team asks for common access controls and monitoring. That could support additional subscriptions or a broader platform contract. It is a thesis to test, not an assumed purchase.
LATEST REPORTED QUARTERS / ALL AMOUNTS IN U.S. DOLLARS
Reporting period | CRWD: Q2 FY2027 | PANW: Q4 FY2026 |
|---|---|---|
Quarter ended | July 31, 2026 | July 31, 2026 |
Revenue / YoY growth | $1.47bn / +26% | $3.41bn / +34% |
Recurring measure | ARR: $5.84bn / +25% | NGS ARR: $9.10bn / +63% |
Operating cash flow | $530.3m | $1,357m |
Free cash flow* | $377.4m | $1,254m |
Adjusted FCF* | Not used here | $1,289m |
GAAP net result | Income: $5.3m | Loss: $282m |
FY2027 revenue outlook | $5.9911–6.0111bn | $14.10–14.20bn |
ARR annualizes CrowdStrike subscription contracts, assuming renewal. NGS ARR covers Palo Alto's defined next-generation offerings and excludes hardware and certain legacy services. These are different scopes, not recognized revenue or AI-agent revenue. [5-6] *CrowdStrike FCF deducts property/equipment, capitalized software and net deferred-compensation investments from operating cash. Palo Alto FCF deducts property/equipment/other assets; adjusted FCF adds back selected costs. All FCF measures shown are non-GAAP. [5-6] Reported growth is not a clean measure of AI demand. Palo Alto's results include acquired businesses. Guidance is management's forward-looking outlook; fiscal-year ends differ: January 31, 2027 for CRWD and July 31, 2027 for PANW. [5-6] |
![Revenue behind the platforms. Latest reported quarters ended July 31, 2026 · US$ billions Source: supplied article, p. 4 [5–6]. Total company revenue, not AI-agent revenue. Business scopes differ; PANW results include acquired businesses.](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/7e6e8c5e-4b3f-4a74-be2c-59fac146b1a2/chart_revenue.png?t=1791894936)
![Reported growth is not all AI. Quarterly revenue growth versus each company’s prior-year quarter Source: supplied article, p. 4 [5–6]. Both quarters ended July 31, 2026. PANW includes acquired businesses. These rates do not isolate organic or AI-agent growth.](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/437f8ae6-3643-47c1-9411-6a096e417b4d/chart_growth.png?t=1791894936)
![Cash flow needs its definitions. Quarters ended July 31, 2026 · US$ millions · each company shown separately Source: supplied article, p. 4 [5–6]. FCF is non-GAAP and definitions differ. CRWD deducts PP&E, capitalized software and net deferred-compensation investments. PANW deducts property/equipment/other assets. PANW adjusted FCF ($1,289m) is separate and is not plotted.](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/a28cbb45-fc0b-4104-960d-a704d2b36bd4/chart_cash.png?t=1791894937)
![GAAP profit is a separate test. Latest reported quarters ended July 31, 2026 · US$ millions Source: supplied article, p. 4 [5–6]. Company-wide results, not AI-agent earnings. Net income/loss and free cash flow are different measures; read GAAP and non-GAAP results together.](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/2f8df79e-c1d0-41e9-8556-a1c046b863df/chart_net.png?t=1791894935)
Sources: [5] CrowdStrike release, August 26, 2026; [6] Palo Alto Networks release, September 1, 2026. Figures are reported and rounded as shown; outlook is not a guaranteed result.
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04 / THE INVESTMENT CASE Trust is useful. |  |
A product announcement opens the question. Customer behavior and cash flow help answer it.
Our company's next decision is commercial. Will it purchase the new controls, expand an existing subscription or use capabilities already included in its software? Useful technology creates an opening. It does not decide which vendor wins the budget.
Look for customers doing more Investors should examine renewals, contract expansion and adoption of additional products. Ask whether customers move from trials to paid deployment. Separate agent-specific evidence from the growth of the wider business; a platform can grow for many reasons. | Understand the quality of growth A larger business acquired through a transaction can lift reported growth. Organic expansion tells a different story. Integration costs, stock-based compensation and dilution also matter. Read adjusted results alongside GAAP earnings and the cash-flow reconciliation. | |
Consider the customer's alternatives Competition may come from another security vendor, a cloud provider or tools bundled into an existing contract. Pricing pressure can limit the benefit of a growing market. Deployment costs and product reliability will influence how quickly customers commit. | Keep valuation in the decision Before buying, compare the current enterprise value with annual revenue and cash flow, using consistent periods. Then ask what future growth the price requires. A strong company can still disappoint shareholders if expectations run ahead of delivery. | |
CRWD and PANW offer two different routes into AI security. Look for paid adoption, durable customer relationships and improving economics at a reasonable valuation.
The companies making AI dependable enough for everyday business deserve a closer look. |
Investment framework: The Investor Call editorial interpretation. Financial context: [5-6]. No price targets, return forecasts or historical performance claims are presented.
05 / CONTINUE YOUR RESEARCH Stay curious. |  |
The next stage of AI adoption depends on businesses trusting the technology enough to give it responsibility. The companies building that trust deserve a closer look.
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COMPANY RESEARCH
| CrowdStrike investor relations | Palo Alto investor relations |
SOURCES
[1] CrowdStrike - Agentic Identity Provider / Sep. 2, 2026
[2] CrowdStrike - OpenAI partnership / Sep. 2, 2026
[3] Palo Alto - Secure AI Agents / Jan. 9, 2026
[4] Palo Alto - Idira platform update / Sep. 30, 2026
[5] CrowdStrike - Q2 FY2027 financial results / Aug. 26, 2026
[6] Palo Alto - Q4 FY2026 financial results / Sep. 1, 2026
[7] Palo Alto - Securing the Agentic Endpoint / Feb. 17, 2026
[8] CrowdStrike - Falcon Flex purchasing model
Research cutoff: October 13, 2026. Company facts and editorial interpretation are distinguished. The opening company is hypothetical.
Research and information only; not personalized investment advice. Investments can lose value.
 Research that matters. Insight you can trust. |  |
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