10 Cybersecurity CEOs On AI's Impact On The Market In 2025

From driving new GenAI-powered security capabilities to expanding partner opportunities, here’s what the CEOs from 10 major vendors are expecting this year.

In 2025, CEOs at top cybersecurity companies are focusing on some common themes when it comes to the AI opportunities ahead — while also emphasizing the differentiation their tools are bringing, of course. As part of CRN’s CEO Outlook 2025 report, CEOs from 10 of the largest and most-influential cybersecurity companies provided their perspective on AI's impact on the market and AI channel opportunities 2025.

All 10 cybersecurity CEOs emphasized that AI is core to their product strategies — whether that means embedding GenAI-powered capabilities across their portfolio or utilizing AI in new ways to automate threat detection and response. Without a doubt, there is a strong consensus that AI is not merely an add-on for cybersecurity, but is in fact a main pillar for the future of the field.

[Related: 5 Emerging GenAI Security Threats In 2024]

Meanwhile, securing the usage of AI itself is a major running theme for many of the top cybersecurity companies CRN heard from. And crucially, whether it’s launching new GenAI-powered capabilities or protecting against AI-related risks, these cybersecurity CEOs are emphasizing their partnerships with solution and service providers as the way to securely and effectively deploy AI. “We foresee AI revolutionizing the collaborative business landscape with our channel partners,” Zscaler Founder and CEO Jay Chaudhry said in an answer to CRN’s CEO Outlook survey.

Among the other CEO respondents from top cybersecurity vendors were Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, SentinelOne CEO Tomer Weingarten and Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport. CRN posed the question: What impact do you expect AI to have on the business you and your partners do together in 2025?

What follows are the answers provided by 10 top cybersecurity CEOs.

Matthew Prince

Co-Founder and CEO

Cloudflare

Artificial Intelligence is bringing explosive opportunity to the Internet at-large and Cloudflare's platform. Today, our secure AI infrastructure and solutions make it incredibly easy to build and deploy AI applications, from the exact same servers as every other Cloudflare service in our connectivity cloud platform. This is the power of our highly scalable cloud-native network. Cloudflare's platform of AI solutions will remain a core area of close development and focus in 2025. In the past year, we have transformed Cloudflare's partner program and we're just beginning to tap into AI's potential in our channel strategy. We are actively exploring new AI-driven opportunities as we continue to evolve our partner program. Behind all of this is Cloudflare's global network — one of the largest and most interconnected infrastructure networks in the world. We will continue to use AI to improve our ability to automatically identify and respond to emerging threats and efficiently deliver services closest to end users.

George Kurtz

Co-Founder and CEO

CrowdStrike

AI is the ultimate accelerator for our business, our partners and our customers. In 2025, CrowdStrike channel partners will continue to benefit from the most innovative, purpose-built generative AI in security. At CrowdStrike, we've pioneered bringing AI to cybersecurity: we deliver AI for cybersecurity AND cybersecurity for AI. AI for cybersecurity: AI native protection across the Falcon platform. Stopping breaches today is about more than just using AI to outsmart adversaries, it's also about protecting the AI models and services organizations rely on to drive their business and secure against GenAI risk. With 29 modules powered by AI, the Falcon platform delivers unmatched predictive capabilities and automated responses, providing the kind of speed and precision today's organizations need and that board members and executives expect. Cybersecurity for AI: Solutions for safe and compliant AI adoption. We'll continue to advance AI innovation that builds on our latest advancements — AI-SPM for Falcon Cloud Security that monitors AI services for misconfigurations and identifies and addresses vulnerabilities for secure AI innovation; AI-generated parsers for Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, enabling SOC teams to quickly ingest and process data from any source; accelerated detection triage with Charlotte AI, which provides the guidance of CrowdStrike experts across incoming detections with the speed, consistency and scale of AI; and CrowdStrike AI Red Team Services, leveraging CrowdStrike's world-class threat intelligence and elite-expertise in adversary tactics to proactively identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in AI systems. 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's the engine driving transformation for our partners and customers alike.

Jill Popelka

CEO

Darktrace

While AI increases the challenge of cybersecurity for organizations globally, it also serves as our best defense. However, successfully using AI to counter rising threats is more complex than simply adding AI into your tools. Unlocking AI's potential requires trust in the technology and 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 focusing on building trust at the start of AI adoption journeys, Darktrace and our global partner community can help organizations create positive change and realize AI's full potential quickly while keeping security professionals at the heart of cyber defense.

Ken Xie

Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO

Fortinet

For over a decade, AI has been a cornerstone of Fortinet's Security Fabric, security services, and threat intelligence, in part to help bolster customers' security operations to protect customers in real-time against the most sophisticated threats. Fortinet's Generative AI assistant, FortiAI, is now embedded in 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 look to expand AI capabilities across more solutions, further enhancing our portfolio's functionality and performance. By integrating AI into our platform, we empower organizations to address sophisticated threats, helping our partners deliver unmatched value to their customers.

Sanjay Beri

Co-Founder and CEO

Netskope

The first question I get in every CIO discussion I have is how Netskope is using AI in our platform. The second question I get is about how to make their use of AI safe. Netskope and our channel partners win together here because we continue to have great answers here. We can accelerate safe enablement of organizations' AI applications, automate setup of AI usage policy and tangential data policies and with our partners, provide more services - from consulting to training to technical enablement - to ensure we can continually address organizations' emerging AI requests. That's the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we can do together, and some of our best partners are already the ones talking about AI innovation in the products they use and AI-ready data security in the services they offer with us. And we can't forget the role of user experience in this, which is all about network performance. Partners that equip themselves to consult on, advise about, and sell the right security and networking platform services are not coincidentally the partners having the winning conversations about AI.

Nikesh Arora

Chairman and CEO

Palo Alto Networks

AI will have a significant impact on the business 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. As organizations rush to adopt and integrate AI into their operations, security emerges as a strategic enabler to ensure they achieve their desired outcomes. AI will continue to enhance the user experience while also improving security outcomes. As developers increasingly rely on AI to generate code, we must put security into the hands of developers. To do this we will launch a best-of-breed, integrated solution for code, cloud and SOC that unleashes the power of AI and automation to solve the cloud security challenges of the future. Effectively stopping attacks in real-time requires the collection and consistent analysis of data using our Precision AI. 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 talking about their platform approach, we don't believe they are equipped to deliver in the way we can. Cortex XSIAM has already proven 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. Incidents requiring investigation have been reduced by orders of magnitude, and automation has achieved over 80% resolution of alerts and incidents. The result is a dramatic reduction in meantime remediation, from days to approximately an hour soon after operationalizing XSIAM, and in many cases, under 10 minutes within a few quarters of implementation, following additional optimizations. AI should improve the user experience and improve the security outcomes. As developers increasingly rely on AI to generate code, we must put security into the hands of developers. The need for securing AI applications has become increasingly important as businesses continue to integrate AI and LLMs into their operations. 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 equipped to create a secure AI ecosystem that prioritizes the integrity of AI security frameworks from development to deployment. AI-enabled code-to-cloud capabilities include AI Access Security, AI Security Posture Management, and AI Runtime Security. AI Access Security enables organizations to use AI tools with confidence. It gives security teams full visibility, application and data access controls, and continuous data risk monitoring. And our partners are integral to enabling these outcomes for our customers.

Tomer Weingarten

Co-Founder and CEO

SentinelOne

Generative AI is a force multiplier for security analysts. Our AI-powered Singularity Platform empowers customers to bring advanced AI capabilities into their entire security stack, from data to operations. 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 using Purple AI to drive real gains in productivity through streamlined workflows and more automation. And we're continuously making the technology better, launching new features and functionality that give security analysts the tools they need to manage hundreds and thousands of alerts in just 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 more quickly and easily choose and deploy Singularity through Amazon Marketplace and use SentinelOne Purple AI on Amazon Bedrock to detect threats earlier, respond faster and stay ahead of attacks. We're also enabling our MSSP partners to adopt more of the Singularity Platform, like Singularity Data Lake and Purple AI, to improve efficiency, enhance security, and expand their business potential.

Peter McKay

CEO

Snyk

2024 marked a pivotal year for AI, driven by rapid adoption across industries. In 2025, the focus will shift from experimentation to mastering AI's full potential while addressing its limitations. Businesses will move beyond foundational applications, such as AI agents for customer service, to harness AI for deeply personalized experiences and transformative operational efficiencies. For developers, AI coding tools are already indispensable. As adoption accelerates, we see both immense opportunities and emerging challenges. 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. Together with our partners, we're empowering businesses to embrace AI safely and strategically. By blending innovation with security, we're building a foundation for growth, resilience, and long-term success.

Assaf Rappaport

Co-Founder and CEO

Wiz

AI is driving cloud usage and raising crucial questions about risk and governance. At Wiz, we focus on helping customers adopt AI safely. 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. Partners are really seeing the benefits. Recently, our VP of Worldwide Channels & Alliances, Tom Henderson, shared how one of our fastest-growing partners has pivoted their strategy to focus 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. As AI becomes more integrated into the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange cloud security platform, we will deliver top-tier threat protection, next-gen Zero Trust Network Access, and holistic digital experience monitoring. This evolution will equip our partners with powerful tools to combat emerging cyber threats, enable the delivery of more personalized and effective security solutions to clients, and foster innovation and service opportunities in the rapidly shifting cybersecurity arena.