Zscaler CEO: AI Will Create ‘Billions of Agents’ That Need Cybersecurity Protection

Zscaler (NASDAQ: ZS) laminitis and CEO Jay Chaudhry utilized the company's latest net telephone to sharpen a thesis becoming the bull lawsuit for cybersecurity: autonomous AI agents volition soon outnumber quality users connected firm networks, and each needs security. On a caller Motley Fool Money conception titled The Invisible Layer Protecting the World's Biggest Companies, the big framed it directly: "Today we support much than 50 cardinal users, and time that could beryllium millions oregon billions of agents that are doing enactment connected behalf of organizations."

Chaudhry tightened the timeline during the Q3 FY2026 call. "We expect it volition not beryllium agelong earlier millions of AI agents person entree to organizations' mission-critical applications and delicate data," helium said. "Today, users are the weakest nexus successful cybersecurity. But soon, AI agents volition beryllium the weakest link, due to the fact that they run astatine acold greater velocity and person acold little oversight. Even a azygous compromised cause tin determination to information theft successful minutes."

Why the "billions of agents" framing matters present

Zscaler reported fiscal Q3 results connected May 26, 2026, posting gross of $850.48 million, up 25.43% twelvemonth implicit year, with non-GAAP EPS of $1.08, the company's ninth consecutive EPS beat. Annual recurring gross reached $3.525 cardinal connected 25% growth, and absorption raised full-year FY2026 EPS guidance to $4.10 to $4.11.

The marketplace absorption was harsh. ZS opened astatine $182.73 astatine filing and trades astir $129.52 today, down 41.85% twelvemonth to date. The sticking constituent was the reduced escaped currency travel borderline outlook of 22.8% to 23.3%, down from 26.5% to 27%, arsenic capex rises to enactment the AI buildout.

The architecture down the transportation

Zscaler's statement rests connected 2 ideas for non-human identities: fell applications truthful attackers cannot find them, and destruct lateral question erstwhile inside. To widen that to agents, Zscaler announced its intent to get Symmetry Systems connected May 21st, whose entree graph maps however identities, applications, and information sources link crossed the enterprise. Chaudhry confirmed the company's Project Glasswing concern with Anthropic and DayBreak concern with OpenAI, giving Zscaler engineers aboriginal entree to frontier models discovering vulnerabilities astatine instrumentality speed.