Artificial Intelligence (AI) Has Supercharged This Cybersecurity Stock That Has Shot Up 62% in 2026. It Can Still Soar Higher

Harsh Chauhan, The Motley Fool

Wed, June 24, 2026 astatine 10:50 AM CDT 6 min read

The advent of artificial quality (AI) is turning retired to beryllium a tailwind for the planetary cybersecurity industry. Cyberattacks are becoming much sophisticated, arsenic atrocious actors present person entree to precocious AI tools which assistance them find targets easy and standard up attacks rapidly.

This explains wherefore companies and governments are poised to walk heavy connected shoring up their cyber defenses. Market probe steadfast IDC estimates that planetary cybersecurity spending could scope $308 cardinal successful 2026 and $430 cardinal successful 2029. Not surprisingly, the request for AI-powered cybersecurity tools volition play a cardinal relation successful boosting this market's size.

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Fortune Business Insights estimates that the AI-focused cybersecurity marketplace could turn from $44 cardinal this twelvemonth to $213 cardinal successful 2034. Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW) is already capitalizing connected this terrific opportunity. The institution released its fiscal 2026 third-quarter results (for the 4th ended April 30) connected June 2, and its numbers and guidance intelligibly bespeak that it is making the astir of the AI-driven maturation successful the cybersecurity market.

Let's instrumentality a person look astatine Palo Alto's show and cheque wherefore this cybersecurity banal tin beryllium a semipermanent winner.

Palo Alto Networks' AI-focused cybersecurity tools volition accelerate maturation

Palo Alto's fiscal Q3 gross accrued 31% twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth to $3 billion. This included $388 cardinal successful gross from the acquisitions of Chronosphere and CyberArk, which were completed successful January and February this year. However, the much important metric to enactment present is that the company's remaining show obligations (RPO) accrued by 36% twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth to $18.4 billion. Chronosphere and CyberArk contributed $1.8 cardinal to Palo Alto's RPO past quarter.

RPO is the full worth of a company's contracts that are yet to beryllium fulfilled astatine the extremity of a quarter. As Palo Alto's RPO accrued faster than its revenue, this suggests the institution is getting much concern than it tin fulfill close now. One of the reasons this is happening is the terrific request for Palo Alto's AI solutions.

More than 300 customers were utilizing its Prisma AIRS level successful the erstwhile quarter, a monolithic summation of 10x from the year-ago period. That's not surprising, arsenic Prisma AIRS is designed to supply end-to-end information to an organization's AI assets, including AI apps, AI agents, AI models, data, endpoints, and browsers.