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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights CrowdStrike, Okta and Palo Alto Networks
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For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – October 2, 2026 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: CrowdStrike (CRWD - Free Report) , Okta Inc. (OKTA - Free Report) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW - Free Report) .
Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:
Will the Rising Adoption of AI Agents Boost CRWD's Identity Business?
CrowdStrike is seeing growing demand for its identity security products as companies deploy more artificial intelligence (AI) agents. These agents need access to enterprise systems and data, creating security risks around identities, permissions and access controls. In the second quarter of fiscal 2027, CrowdStrike's identity business ending annual recurring revenues (ARR) grew 34% year over year to more than $585 million. Strong growth across the identity portfolio is helping CrowdStrike capitalize on the rising need to secure AI agents.
Falcon Shield is emerging as an important part of this business as enterprises look to secure third-party agentic applications. Its ending ARR skyrocketed more than 185% year over year in the second quarter. The company's privileged account security offering saw ending ARR grow more than 35 times year over year. The company believes that older access controls are becoming less effective as AI agents and other non-human users become more common, which should further fuel the demand for stronger controls as companies manage more non-human identities.
CrowdStrike is also expanding its identity capabilities through Signal, which provides real-time and more detailed access controls for both human and non-human users. In one customer example, Signal handled more than 30 million unique access decisions without friction. A major global financial firm also added next-gen identity to its Falcon deployment after an AI security audit, along with AIDR to support its AI adoption. These deployments show how identity security can become a key part of securing AI use.
As companies give AI agents greater access to data and enterprise systems, the need to control these identities could increase. CrowdStrike says that customers need to manage identity, data, execution and network access as they move AI agents into production. With its identity products already showing strong growth, the rising adoption of AI agents could create another source of demand for CrowdStrike's platform. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2027 and 2028 indicates revenue growth of 24.6% and 22.4%, respectively.
How Competitors Fare Against CRWD
Okta Inc. is expanding its identity platform to secure AI agents across enterprise environments. In the second quarter of fiscal 2027, new products accounted for about 30% of bookings, while Okta for AI Agents generated dozens of deals, including several worth more than $1 million.
The company has also made its AI agent governance product generally available for regulated environments to help customers discover, govern and protect human, non-human and agent identities through a single control layer.
Palo Alto Networks is also expanding its identity security capabilities through its Idira platform, which includes technology from its CyberArk acquisition. The company is targeting the growing need to secure machine identities and AI agents as enterprises deploy more autonomous systems.
Idira is designed to provide identity security and privilege controls for AI agents, while Prisma AIRS adds AI security and policy enforcement capabilities, which helps the company secure agent identities, permissions and activity as AI adoption expands.
CRWD's Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
Shares of CrowdStrike have upsurged 125.8% in the year-to-date period compared with the Zacks Security industry's return of whopping 101.5%.
From a valuation standpoint, CrowdStrike trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 39.35, significantly higher than the industry's average of 19.86. The ZacksValue Score of F suggests that the CRWD stock is overvalued.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CrowdStrike's fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings indicates year-over-year growth of 35.5% and 28.2%, respectively. The estimate for fiscal 2027 has been unchanged over the past 30 days. The same for fiscal 2028 has been revised up by a penny over the past 30 days.
CrowdStrike currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
From thousands of stocks, 5 Zacks experts each have chosen their favorite to skyrocket +100% or more in months to come. From those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian hand-picks one to have the most explosive upside of all.
This company targets millennial and Gen Z audiences, generating nearly $1 billion in revenue last quarter alone. A recent pullback makes now an ideal time to jump aboard. Of course, all our elite picks aren't winners but this one could far surpass earlier Zacks' Stocks Set to Double like Nano-X Imaging which shot up +129.6% in little more than 9 months.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
View the Zacks #1 Rank List
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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights CrowdStrike, Okta and Palo Alto Networks
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – October 2, 2026 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: CrowdStrike (CRWD - Free Report) , Okta Inc. (OKTA - Free Report) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW - Free Report) .
Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:
Will the Rising Adoption of AI Agents Boost CRWD's Identity Business?
CrowdStrike is seeing growing demand for its identity security products as companies deploy more artificial intelligence (AI) agents. These agents need access to enterprise systems and data, creating security risks around identities, permissions and access controls. In the second quarter of fiscal 2027, CrowdStrike's identity business ending annual recurring revenues (ARR) grew 34% year over year to more than $585 million. Strong growth across the identity portfolio is helping CrowdStrike capitalize on the rising need to secure AI agents.
Falcon Shield is emerging as an important part of this business as enterprises look to secure third-party agentic applications. Its ending ARR skyrocketed more than 185% year over year in the second quarter. The company's privileged account security offering saw ending ARR grow more than 35 times year over year. The company believes that older access controls are becoming less effective as AI agents and other non-human users become more common, which should further fuel the demand for stronger controls as companies manage more non-human identities.
CrowdStrike is also expanding its identity capabilities through Signal, which provides real-time and more detailed access controls for both human and non-human users. In one customer example, Signal handled more than 30 million unique access decisions without friction. A major global financial firm also added next-gen identity to its Falcon deployment after an AI security audit, along with AIDR to support its AI adoption. These deployments show how identity security can become a key part of securing AI use.
As companies give AI agents greater access to data and enterprise systems, the need to control these identities could increase. CrowdStrike says that customers need to manage identity, data, execution and network access as they move AI agents into production. With its identity products already showing strong growth, the rising adoption of AI agents could create another source of demand for CrowdStrike's platform. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2027 and 2028 indicates revenue growth of 24.6% and 22.4%, respectively.
How Competitors Fare Against CRWD
Okta Inc. is expanding its identity platform to secure AI agents across enterprise environments. In the second quarter of fiscal 2027, new products accounted for about 30% of bookings, while Okta for AI Agents generated dozens of deals, including several worth more than $1 million.
The company has also made its AI agent governance product generally available for regulated environments to help customers discover, govern and protect human, non-human and agent identities through a single control layer.
Palo Alto Networks is also expanding its identity security capabilities through its Idira platform, which includes technology from its CyberArk acquisition. The company is targeting the growing need to secure machine identities and AI agents as enterprises deploy more autonomous systems.
Idira is designed to provide identity security and privilege controls for AI agents, while Prisma AIRS adds AI security and policy enforcement capabilities, which helps the company secure agent identities, permissions and activity as AI adoption expands.
CRWD's Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
Shares of CrowdStrike have upsurged 125.8% in the year-to-date period compared with the Zacks Security industry's return of whopping 101.5%.
From a valuation standpoint, CrowdStrike trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 39.35, significantly higher than the industry's average of 19.86. The ZacksValue Score of F suggests that the CRWD stock is overvalued.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CrowdStrike's fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings indicates year-over-year growth of 35.5% and 28.2%, respectively. The estimate for fiscal 2027 has been unchanged over the past 30 days. The same for fiscal 2028 has been revised up by a penny over the past 30 days.
CrowdStrike currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Research Chief Names "Single Best Pick to Double"
From thousands of stocks, 5 Zacks experts each have chosen their favorite to skyrocket +100% or more in months to come. From those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian hand-picks one to have the most explosive upside of all.
This company targets millennial and Gen Z audiences, generating nearly $1 billion in revenue last quarter alone. A recent pullback makes now an ideal time to jump aboard. Of course, all our elite picks aren't winners but this one could far surpass earlier Zacks' Stocks Set to Double like Nano-X Imaging which shot up +129.6% in little more than 9 months.
Free: See Our Top Stock And 4 Runners Up
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.