Zscaler Founder and CEO Jay Chaudhry tells Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi that AI agents are becoming the weakest link in corporate security, and the best way to secure them is not to trust them. Chaudhry explains why rogue agents are the biggest risk to companies, how zero trust security applies to agents, and where Zscaler fits in the agentic stack ahead of its first investor day since 2021. He also pushes back on Sam Altman's comment that the world should accept some bad things happening to reap AI's benefits, and shares his advice for Anthropic and OpenAI on going public.
Sozz...
What Jagtar Chaudhry said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Jagtar Chaudhry, CEO of Zscaler, discussed the security risks of AI agents, arguing that agents will become the weakest link and should not be trusted. He emphasized that agents can run amok on corporate networks and exploit vulnerabilities, and that zero trust architecture is the solution. He noted that over 50% of Fortune 500 companies are Zscaler customers and that they are extending zero trust to agents. Chaudhry disagreed with Sam Altman's suggestion that the world should accept bad things for AI benefits, advocating for responsibility and guardrails instead. He opposed slowing model development but called for more rigorous testing. Ahead of Zscaler's investor day, he promised visibility into AI security ARR growth. He described Zscaler's role in the agentic stack as hiding applications, preventing lateral movement, and acting as a policy engine. Finally, he advised private AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI that going public brings discipline and transparency, which enterprises value.
Key takeaways
Over 50% of Fortune 500 companies are Zscaler customers.
Zscaler extends zero trust architecture to AI agents, limiting their access to specific applications.
Zscaler will provide visibility into AI security ARR growth at investor day.
Going public adds discipline and transparency, which enterprises prefer.
0:05How are you starting to protect companies for this AI agent world?
1:06Have you tested what the potential of something like this is?
1:27I mean, what's the risk if agents start to run, whether it's from Muse or even OpenAI, whatever it is, what's the risk to corporates?
2:12Are people already putting too much trust in agents?
3:16When you hear Sam Altman say in an interview, I guess it was this morning, quote, 'The world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of AI,' is that okay with you?
I got a whole fridge. Um, you know, I was mentioning at the top here, we were just talking about Meta and Muse. How are you starting to protect companies for this AI agent world?
Today, a user is the weakest link. Tomorrow there'll be billions of agents. They become the weakest link. The best way to secure them is don't trust them.
Don't trust agents. But give them this much trust for certain applications and services, and that's it. The problem today is that we let agents loose on our corporate network. It's like getting inside your building. They go where they need to go.
They're running a muck. Not only your building, they get on the internet. Then they start scouting what websites are out there. It's easy to scan those websites. What's more challenging is the frontier model can find security vulnerabilities in a website and a firewall and a VPN and load balancers. They break in and they get in. That's the problem.
My team has been playing with Muse and a number of other similar things. This shows what can be done, but enterprises aren't ready for it. Our job is to make sure we provide enough security and guardrails so they could be used in a secure fashion.
Well, Mark over at Meta, he's already thinking about getting into the enterprise with agents. I mean, what's the risk if agents start to run, whether it's from Muse or even OpenAI, whatever it is, what's the risk to corporates?
So, agents going rogue is the biggest risk. Today, a user gets compromised and then the user infects everything else. Tomorrow, all these agents — imagine an agent on your corporate network hacked or hijacked or it goes rogue. They're far more dangerous because they work at machine speed. They have no coffee break, no weekend, no sleep time, and the number keeps them going. So they can get your confidential data out. They can bring systems down. Those are the type of risks that we have to deal with.
So they aren't. I work with lots of large enterprises. Over 50% of Fortune 500 companies are our customers. Today we provide zero trust for users. That means the users of their companies, they go through our exchange, our switchboard, to make sure a user can only access application A, B, or C. We've taken the same approach extended to agents. So agents are only given access to certain application services. We are working with many of the larger enterprises who want to embrace AI. There's a lot of pressure on them because AI actually is delivering great productivity. It is reducing.
14 more exchanges in this transcript
Sign in free to read the rest of this interview. No card required.
Chaudhry, J. (2026, October 5). Zscaler CEO's advice to Anthropic and OpenAI on going public [Interview transcript]. Yahoo Finance. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2991911/
MLA
Jagtar Chaudhry. "Zscaler CEO's advice to Anthropic and OpenAI on going public." Yahoo Finance, 5 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2991911/.
BibTeX
@misc{chaudhry2026_2991911,
author = {Jagtar Chaudhry},
title = {Zscaler CEO's advice to Anthropic and OpenAI on going public},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Yahoo Finance. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {oct},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2991911/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
