5 Key Takeaways
- Palo Alto Networks will protect its roughly 6,000 engineers even if AI doubles their productivity, using gains to build more products and compete faster.
- CEO Nikesh Arora said non-engineering functions are 'fair game' for AI-driven efficiency pressure, though no layoffs were announced.
- Palo Alto Networks is willing to let startups test new categories and then acquire winners using its cash and market valuation rather than build everything internally.
- AI is sharply accelerating cyberattacks, potentially chaining vulnerabilities into an attack in about 12 minutes versus roughly four days for enterprises to detect and resolve unknown threats.
- The company is watching agentic security as a growing market because autonomous AI agents create new attack surfaces and demand faster, automated defenses.
Palo Alto Networks CEO: AI Won’t Cost Engineers Their Jobs, but Other Roles Are ‘Fair Game’
October 5, 2026
Artificial intelligence is forcing companies to rethink how they staff their operations, and one of the world’s largest cybersecurity firms is drawing a sharp line between technical and non-technical roles. Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora says his engineering workforce will be protected even if AI makes those employees dramatically more productive. But for employees outside engineering, his message is blunt: other functions are “fair game.”
Arora made the comments during a recent ICONIQ Frontier fireside chat with ICONIQ’s Divesh Makan. The conversation covered AI’s impact on productivity, the shifting economics of cybersecurity, and how Palo Alto Networks plans to stay ahead of smaller, faster competitors. His remarks offer a rare window into how a major technology company is thinking about AI and jobs.
Palo Alto Networks is one of the cybersecurity industry’s most valuable companies. It employs about 6,000 engineers and has recently crossed $330 billion in market value. The company also became the first to hit NIS 1 trillion on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. It has launched an AI service to hunt for cyber vulnerabilities, a sign of how central artificial intelligence has become to its product strategy.
Engineering Is Protected, Even With Greater Productivity
Arora was direct about his plans for the company’s technical workforce. He said Palo Alto Networks has about 6,000 engineers, and he would not reduce that number even if AI made them twice as productive.
“I have 6,000 engineers,” Arora said. “Even if they get twice as effective and efficient, I’m not firing any one of them.”
His reasoning is not rooted in sentimentality. Arora argued that greater engineering productivity would allow the company to develop more products and move faster than competitors. In cybersecurity, speed matters because threats evolve quickly and customers expect constant innovation.
“My competition is going to be innovating faster. I want to do more things,” he said. “I’ve never met an engineering team that doesn’t have a product roadmap ... and they still don’t get it done. So I have enough backlog. I’m not reducing my technical organization.”
Arora added that Palo Alto Networks may need “different kinds of people who understand AI,” but he said the company would not shrink its technical workforce. That distinction is important: the company may hire AI specialists and reskill existing engineers, but it does not see AI as a reason to cut engineering headcount.
Other Functions Face More Pressure
Arora drew a clear line between engineering and the rest of the company. While engineers may be shielded from AI-driven job cuts, other functions are not guaranteed the same protection.
“But all other functions, they’re fair game,” he said.
He did not specify which functions could face cuts, and he did not indicate that another round of layoffs was planned. His comments were made during a fireside chat rather than an earnings call or formal company announcement. Still, the message was hard to miss: as AI makes certain types of work more efficient, non-engineering roles may come under greater scrutiny.
This reflects a broader tension in the corporate world. Many companies are exploring how generative AI can automate tasks in finance, legal, human resources, marketing, and customer support. Engineering, however, is often treated differently because product roadmaps are long and technical backlogs are deep. For Palo Alto Networks, the bottleneck is not a lack of work; it is the time and talent needed to execute.
Buying Innovation Instead of Building It All
Arora also explained how Palo Alto Networks approaches new technology categories and startups. When a new area emerges, dozens of startups may be funded to pursue similar ideas. Rather than trying to develop every solution internally, Palo Alto Networks can watch the market and acquire companies that prove they have the strongest products.
“I still have internal efforts, but remember I’m one of 41 efforts,” Arora said. “You have to have humility to believe that I will not get it right. More than likely I won’t get it right nine out of 10 times. But somebody will.”
That humility shapes the company’s acquisition strategy. Palo Alto Networks has financial resources and a high market valuation, which gives it options that smaller competitors do not have.
“I have something they don’t. I have cash. I have market cap. So I can go buy them and bring them, make them my team. That’s how we do it,” he said.
Arora said the company is currently watching the growing market for agentic security. Agentic security focuses on protecting and managing autonomous AI agents—software programs that can plan and perform tasks with minimal human supervision—operating inside companies. He said about 40 companies are being funded in the category, including a number of Israeli startups.
He also argued that large companies often underestimate what startups can accomplish with a different approach. Small teams outside a large company may be more focused, more dedicated, and more willing to attack problems from first principles.
“I haven’t seen a problem that 50 engineers and $10 million can’t solve in a large company. I don’t know why we just don’t give them 50 engineers. Actually, we do, a lot of times, and many times they don’t solve the problem, because the 50 working outside are much smarter, much more dedicated, much more resourceful in attacking problems from first principles,” he said.
The implication is that even a well-resourced company cannot assume its internal team will win every race. Sometimes the best move is to let external startups prove a product works, then bring them into the fold.
AI Is Speeding Up Attacks
Arora also explained how AI is changing the economics of cybersecurity. The old assumption was that attackers and defenders operated on roughly similar timelines. AI is disrupting that balance.
According to Arora, enterprises currently take an average of about four days to identify and resolve an unknown security threat. AI, however, can potentially string together vulnerabilities—concatenate them—and launch an attack in about 12 minutes.
“The problem is the average time that AI is now showing us that they can concatenate vulnerabilities and attack someone is 12 minutes,” he said. “So we have a bit of a gap between 12 minutes and four days.”
That gap is enormous. If attackers can chain weaknesses together and move in minutes, defenders cannot rely on manual processes that take days. Security teams need AI-assisted detection, automated response, and tools that can operate at machine speed. This is one reason Palo Alto Networks has been investing in AI-powered security capabilities.
The shift also explains why agentic security is attracting so much attention. As more businesses deploy autonomous AI agents, those agents become a new attack surface. They can access data, make decisions, and interact with other systems. If they are not secured properly, they could be manipulated or compromised at speed.
What Happens Next
Arora’s comments suggest that AI’s impact on employment will not be uniform. At Palo Alto Networks, engineers appear to be protected because there is always more product to build and more threats to address. AI may make them faster, but the company sees that speed as a competitive advantage, not a reason to cut headcount.
Non-engineering roles may not have the same insulation. Arora did not announce layoffs, but his language signals that those functions could face more pressure as AI automates routine work and changes how companies staff support operations.
At the same time, the security landscape is accelerating. If AI can turn vulnerabilities into attacks in 12 minutes, cybersecurity firms have no choice but to respond with faster, more automated defenses. That creates demand for new products, new engineering talent, and new acquisitions.
Palo Alto Networks will likely continue to monitor the agentic security market and may use its cash and market capitalization to acquire startups that prove their products can solve real problems. Internal teams will keep working on new ideas, but the company is willing to buy outside innovation when it wins.
The one near-certainty is that AI will keep reshaping both the workforce and the security landscape. Arora’s message is a clear statement of how one major company plans to navigate that change: protect the engineers, accelerate the product roadmap, and let everyone else prove their value in an AI-driven world.
No comments:
Post a Comment