Briefing at a Glance

  • Zscaler executives said on Tuesday (May 12) during their fiscal 2026 third-quarter earnings callthat the company is seeking support from channel partners to drive adoption of its zero-trust cybersecurity platform. The quarter ended April 30.
  • Earlier this month, the company deepened its alliances with global system integrators by launching an AI security initiative called Project AI-Guardian , involving Cognizant, EY, HCL Infosys, TCS, and Wipro. Zscaler also announced the acquisition ofSymmetry Systemsfor an undisclosed amount, a company that provides an identity mapping and access control security platform.
  • "AI is changing the nature of cybersecurity in real time," Zscaler CEO and Chairman Jay Chaudhry told investors on Tuesday. "Today, users are the weakest link in cybersecurity. But soon, AI agents will become the weakest link because they operate at much faster speeds with less oversight. Even a single compromised agent could go from discovery to data theft in minutes."

Deep Dive

As enterprise software vendors threaten to unleash vast numbers of autonomous AI agents into the cloud, security providers are racing to build defenses.

"We anticipate that in the near future, millions of AI agents will have access to organizations' mission-critical applications and sensitive data," Chaudhry said.

Over the past year, Zscaler has strengthened its Zero Trust Exchange platform through a series of acquisitions, adding Red Canary's managed detection and response、Splx's AI governanceand SquareX's browser securitycapabilities. The addition of Symmetry extends the company's coverage to hard-to-track AI agents.

According to Fernando Montenegro, vice president and practice lead for cybersecurity and resilience at Futurum Group, Symmetry's technology uses access graphs to map user interactions across applications and data sources, filling a gap in Zscaler's coverage.

"Zero Trust Exchange is a mature enforcement platform," Montenegro said ina blog poston Wednesday. "But until now, it lacked a relationship visibility layer to tell the platform what policies to enforce when the identity is an autonomous agent rather than a human."

The acquisition comes alongside a robust quarter: Zscaler's revenue grew 25% year over year,exceeding $850 million. CFO Kevin Rubin said on Tuesday that annual recurring revenue for its cloud platform also grew 25%, reaching $3.5 billion.

"We ended the third quarter with 748 customers with annual recurring revenue over $1 million and 4,003 customers with annual recurring revenue over $100,000," Rubin added.

The company benefits from partnerships with global system integrators in the high end of the market and is now actively courting value-added resellers and other channel partners to reach the mid-market.

"Channel — especially the VAR channel — plays a significant role in the lower end of the market," Chaudhry said. "So we are creating dedicated programs and incentives for new customers in that segment."