Palo Alto, CrowdStrike Report Record Quarter on AI-driven Cyber Demand

Industry context: For practitioners, the rise of agentic AI broadens automated attack surfaces and elevates demand for identity-first defenses. CNBC reports CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks closed out their best quarter ever, with the firms rallying 95% and 113%, respectively, between April and June, driven by demand for more sophisticated cyber defenses (CNBC). CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on an earnings call, 'What the Mythos moment proved is that the world, starting from the frontier AI labs themselves, realized that AI needs a cybersecurity ecosystem' (CNBC). Both companies have been early partners in model testing programs with Anthropic and OpenAI, including participation in OpenAI's Daybreak cyber initiative, and both joined White House meetings on AI security (CNBC).