Here’s what the Executives from 10 key vendors are anticipating this year, from developing new GenAI-powered safety capabilities to expanding companion opportunities.
In 2025, CEOs at top security companies are focusing on some common themes when it comes to the AI opportunities forward— while also emphasizing the diversity their tools are bringing, of course. Executives from 10 of the largest and most powerful security companies shared their views on AI’s impact on the market and potential opportunities for AI in 2025 in the CRN CEO Outlook 2025 statement.
All ten cybersecurity CEOs emphasized that AI is fundamental to their product strategies, whether that means integrating GenAI-powered capabilities into their portfolios or using AI in novel ways to manage risk detection and response. Without a doubt, there is a strong consensus that AI is not only an add-on for security, but is in fact a key pillar for the future of the area.
[ Related: 5 Emerging GenAI Security Threats In 2024]
Securing the use of AI itself is a significant running concept for many of the top security organizations CRN heard from. And crucially, whether it’s launching new GenAI-powered capabilities or protecting against AI-related risks, these security CEOs are emphasizing their partnerships with alternative and service providers as the way to safely and successfully install AI. In response to CRN’s CEO Outlook study, Zscaler founder and CEO Jay Chaudhry remarked,” We foresee AI revolutionizing the creative company environment with our route companions.”
Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, SentinelOne CEO Tomer Weingarten, and Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport were just a few of the leading security vendor CEOs who responded. CRN posed the question: What affect do you anticipate AI to have on the business you and your companions do together in 2025?
The responses provided by 10 of the best security Directors are what follows.
Matthew Prince
Co-Founder and CEO
Cloudflare
Artificial intelligence is opening up new opportunities for Cloudflare’s software and the Internet at large. Our protected AI system and solutions today enable it to be very simple to create and deploy Iot applications using the same servers as every other Cloudflare support in our connectivity cloud platform. This is the strength of our highly flexible cloud-native system. In 2025, Cloudflare’s system of AI solutions will continue to be a key area of research and development. We’ve transformed Cloudflare’s partner program over the past year, and we’re only beginning to use AI’s ability in our channel strategy. We are constantly exploring new AI-driven possibilities as we continue to evolve our companion system. One of the largest and most connected system networks in the world, Cloudflare’s global community, is hidden behind all of this. We will continue to make use of AI to enhance our ability to quickly and effectively provide services to end clients.
George Kurtz
Co-Founder and CEO
CrowdStrike
For our company, our companions, and our customers, AI is the best pedal. CrowdStrike network partners may continue to benefit from the most cutting-edge, purpose-built relational AI in safety in 2025. At CrowdStrike, we’ve pioneered bringing AI to security: we deliver Artificial for security AND security for AI. AI local security across the Falcon software for security Now, stopping breaches involves more than just using AI to outsmart adversaries; it also involves safeguarding the AI models and services businesses rely on to grow their businesses and safeguard against GenAI threat. With 29 units powered by AI, the Falcon system delivers unmatched predicted skills and integrated responses, providing the kind of speed and precision today’s organizations need and that committee members and executives expect. Solutions for safe and compliant AI adoption: cybersecurity for AI. We’ll continue to advance AI innovation by building on our most recent innovations, such as AI-SPM for Falcon Cloud Security, which monitors and fixes vulnerabilities in AI services and uses AI-generated parsers for Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, accelerating the incoming detection triage with Charlotte AI, which provides CrowdStrike experts with guidance across incoming detections with the speed, consistency, and scale of AI, and CrowdStrike AI Red Team Services, which leverage CrowdStrike’s elite-expertise in adversary We are shaping the future of cybersecurity by securing AI innovation and developing the technologies of tomorrow. AI at CrowdStrike is more than just a feature; it is the engine behind transformation for both our partners and customers.
Jill Popelka
CEO
Darktrace
While AI increases the challenge of cybersecurity for organizations globally, it also serves as our best defense. However, using AI to combat rising threats requires more technical skills than simply incorporating AI into your tools. To unlock AI’s potential, we must put people first. To build this trust, we must put people first. Together with our partners, we can help customers apply the right AI to the right cybersecurity challenge, build AI literacy across their teams, and ensure the deployment of AI in the SOC is focused on enhancing human capabilities. By placing a premium on building trust right away in the adoption of AI, Darktrace and our global partner community can assist businesses in achieving positive change and achieving AI’s full potential quickly while keeping security professionals at the forefront of cyber defense.
Ken Xie
Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO
Fortinet
Fortinet’s Security Fabric, security services, and threat intelligence have been a key component for more than ten years, in part to support customers ‘ security operations by ensuring real-time protection from the most sophisticated threats. FortiAI, a Generative AI assistant from Forttinet, is now a part of seven of our flagship products, including FortiAnalyzer, FortiManager, and FortiSIEM, among others. These AI-driven tools enable customers to proactively address threats, automate responses, and simplify security management. In 2025, we intend to expand our portfolio’s functionality and performance, enhancing both our existing and new AI capabilities across more solutions. By incorporating AI into our platform, we help businesses combat sophisticated threats while assisting our partners in providing unmatched value to their customers.
Sanjay Beri
Co-Founder and CEO
Netskope
How does Netskope use AI in our platform is the first question I get asked during every CIO discussion. How can I make their use of AI safe, which is the second query I receive. Netskope and our channel partners win together here because we continue to have great answers here. We can facilitate organizations ‘ AI applications’ safe encoding, automate the setup of tangential data policies and, with our partners, offer more services, from consulting to training to technical enablement, to ensure we can respond to organizations ‘ emerging AI requests. That’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we can accomplish together, and some of our closest friends are already those who are addressing AI-ready data security in the services we provide with them. And we can’t forget the role of user experience in this, which is all about network performance. Partners who are equipped to consult on, advise about, and sell the best security and networking platform services are not by accident the partners having successful conversations about AI.
Nikesh Arora
Chairman and CEO
Palo Alto Networks
AI will have a significant influence on the transactions we conduct with our partners. The potential of AI to drive efficiency and foster technological innovation is immense, and it is a driving force for both us and our partners. Security emerges as a strategic enabler to ensure organizations achieve their desired outcomes as organizations adopt and integrate AI into their operations. AI will continue to enhance the user experience while also enhancing security outcomes. We must provide security for developers as more and more developers rely on AI to create code. In order to address the future challenges facing cloud security, we will develop a best-of-breed, integrated solution for code, cloud, and SOC that makes use of AI and automation. Our Precision AI requires the collection and analysis of data to stop attacks in real-time. We believe that the key lies in gathering sufficient context, understanding, and enriched data in a unified platform to truly make a difference. So, while many of our competitors are describing their platform approach, we don’t think they are capable of delivering the same way we do. Cortex XSIAM has already demonstrated transformative effects on security outcomes. With ingestion of close to 10 petabytes of data per day and a robust ecosystem of 7, 000+ detectors and over a thousand automation playbooks, we have witnessed customers reduce the number of tools in their SOC significantly. Accidents that call for investigation have been drastically reduced, and automation has enabled over 80 % of alert and incident resolution. The end result is dramatic improvement in the meantime remediation, which can be done in less than an hour, and in many cases, in less than 10 minutes after XSIAM is operational, following further optimizations. AI should improve the user experience and improve the security outcomes. We must provide security for developers as more and more developers rely on AI to create code. As businesses continue to integrate AI and LLMs into their operations, the need for securing AI applications has grown more significant. Additionally, with employees adopting AI applications at a rapid pace and organizations across various industries gaining a competitive edge through AI-powered applications, Palo Alto Networks ‘ Secure AI by Design portfolio aims to securely enable AI deployments. Organizations are now able to build a secure AI ecosystem that prioritizes the security of AI security frameworks from development to deployment. AI-enabled code-to-cloud features include AI Posture Management, AI Runtime Security, and AI Access Security. AI Access Security enables organizations to use AI tools with confidence. It provides security teams with complete control over application and data access, as well as ongoing data risk monitoring. And our partners play a significant role in enabling these outcomes for our customers.
Tomer Weingarten
Co-Founder and CEO
SentinelOne
For security analysts, Generative AI is a force multiplier. Customers can now integrate cutting-edge AI capabilities into their entire security stack, from data to operations, with our AI-powered Singularity Platform. It not only sets a new standard in the market, but also establishes a foundational pillar for the future of cybersecurity: streaming enterprise wide security data to be processed and analyzed by advanced AI algorithms and agents that drive real-time, autonomous outcomes. Customers are also utilizing Purple AI to increase productivity through simplified workflows and greater automation. And we’re constantly improving the technology, adding new features and capabilities that give security analysts the tools they need to manage hundreds and thousands of alerts in a matter of minutes and gain advantage over adversaries. We’re partnering with leading OEMs like Lenovo to bundle Singularity and Purple AI on new enterprise PC shipments and extend security and autonomous protection to millions of endpoints across the world in 2025. We’ve expanded our partnership with AWS so that AWS customers can choose and deploy Singularity through the Amazon Marketplace and SentinelOne Purple AI on Amazon Bedrock to spot threats earlier, react more quickly, and stay ahead of attacks. Our MSSP partners can also use our Singularity Platform to increase their efficiency, security, and business potential by adopting more of it, like Singularity Data Lake and Purple AI.
Peter McKay
CEO
Snyk
The year 2024 saw a pivotal year for AI, driven by industry-wide rapid adoption. The focus will shift from experimenting to utilizing AI’s full potential while addressing its limitations in 2025. Businesses will move beyond foundational applications, such as AI agents for customer service, to harness AI for deeply personalized experiences and transformative operational efficiencies. AI coding tools are already essential for developers. We see both enormous opportunities and new challenges as adoption progresses. At Snyk, alongside our partners, we’re committed to scaling our solutions to address these challenges, ensuring our product roadmap evolves to meet immediate needs while preparing for the future. We’re empowering businesses to embrace AI safely and strategically, working with our partners. We are laying the groundwork for growth, resilience, and long-term success by blending innovation and security.
Assaf Rappaport
Co-Founder and CEO
Wiz
Cloud usage is being fueled by AI, which raises important questions about governance and risk. We at Wiz emphasize assisting customers in safe adoption of AI. We were the first to offer AI Security Posture Management- accelerating AI adoption securely with full-stack visibility into AI pipelines and easy detection of AI misconfigurations, and we’ll keep innovating in this space. Partnering is actually seeing the advantages. Our VP of Worldwide Channels & Alliances, Tom Henderson, recently described how one of our fastest-growing partners has changed their strategy to concentrate on AI, recommending Wiz as their go-to for AI security. It’s an exciting time as the market evolves, and I’m so excited for what lies ahead.
Jay Chaudhry
Founder, Chairman, and CEO
Zscaler
We foresee AI revolutionizing the collaborative business landscape with our channel partners. We will offer top-tier threat protection, next-generation Zero Trust Network Access, and holistic digital experience monitoring as AI becomes more and more integrated into the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange cloud security platform. This change will give our partners the tools they need to combat the most pressing cyber threats, make it easier to provide clients with more personalized and effective security solutions, and foster new and exciting service opportunities in the rapidly changing cybersecurity landscape.