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Nikesh Arora

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Palo Alto Networks

Search every verified Nikesh Arora interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In recent appearances, Nikesh Arora, Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, has discussed the cybersecurity implications of advanced AI, including threats from autonomous agents and quantum computing. He stated that AI can be used for both beneficial and harmful purposes, comparing it to past technologies like nuclear power, and argued that the focus should be on deploying AI safely and securely rather than slowing its development. Arora described proposals for AI labs to voluntarily pace their model releases as "unrealistic," saying that not all developers would agree to such a framework. He also noted that nation states have been harvesting encrypted data in anticipation of future quantum computers capable of breaking current encryption. Arora discussed Palo Alto Networks' business performance and strategy, including its fiscal Q4 2026 results and the company's "platformization" approach, which he said is necessary for real-time defense against AI-powered attacks. He reported that the company achieved approximately 220 net new platformizations in the quarter and provided initial revenue growth guidance for fiscal year 2027 across its platforms. Arora also commented on the broader industry, saying that the cybersecurity sector faces a large amount of "technical debt" and that major breaches are likely in the coming years as customers work to modernize their infrastructure. He stated that the entire software industry will be rewritten over the next decade and that AI represents a long-term tailwind for cybersecurity.

Recent appearances

Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“When I saw it come out, I figured that clearly the AI labs understand this is a problem and I think we all do. It is a possibility that if not managed right we should not be in a haste to release these models. So I think that's a good idea to make sure you get it right. I think the notion of a ninja move I thought was oh maybe they'll going to try and get the sympathy of the regulators and sympathy of the lawmakers s”

“Look, every innovation comes with it pros and cons. And yes, can AI be used to the detriment of society? Of course, but that's no different. We've seen technology in the past that could have been used for bad things, but they've been used for good things, right? Take nuclear, right? So, I think yes, AI could be used for bad things, but you can't take the downside scenario and build towards it. You have to look at the”

“I think this is unrealistic. Not everybody's going to pace themselves. You'd have to pace yourselves. You have to get agreement for every country in the world, agreement for anybody who's doing any work on AI. I think that's highly unlikely. I think more than likely that some people will jump the gun and you'll have still people developing at the frontier, which means we shouldn't try and stop the frontier because th”

“Look, every innovation comes with it pros and cons. And yes, can AI be used to the detriment of society? Of course. But that's no different. We've seen technology in the past that could have been used for bad things, but they've been used for good things, right? Take nuclear, right? So, I think yes, AI could be used for bad things, but you can't take the downside scenario and build towards it. You have to look at the”

“The business model trap in my mind is as follows. OpenAI, Anthropic both allow us to use pretty much the product for free if you're a consumer, at least on the chat side, not as much the coding side, but there's a lot of free. And the value I guess to them is that that free allows them to train so that they get a better frontier over time. So we're sort of you know if it's free you're the product. So we're the produc”

“That's a very insightful question, my friend. Um, so that's a good question because I don't think if we slap dash frontier AI models in the protection scenario that is a good economic outcome. Yeah. Like you just cannot do a 5.6 pro fable 5.1 for every transaction that happens across your network. You're going to go That's right. So think about it. Every day we inspect 180 terabytes of data every day. Yeah. Uh you st”

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