EnterprisePANWSEP 01, 2026

Palo Alto prints $3.41B Q4, NGS ARR up 63% to $9.1B as agentic threats become a small-business line item

PANW beat on every line and acquired agentic-AI startup Console. For owners running digital funnels, the message is that the security bill is going up because the attacks are getting smarter.

BY SEBASTIAN PHAM · BANKING & FINANCE AI

Palo Alto Networks reported fiscal Q4 revenue of $3.41 billion, up 34% from $2.54 billion a year earlier and above the LSEG consensus of $3.35 billion. Product revenue was $738 million, subscription-and-support $2.67 billion, and adjusted EPS came in at $1.02 against a $0.98 estimate, growth of 7% year over year. The company simultaneously announced the acquisition of Console, an agentic-AI startup. The two facts are the same story.

Next-Generation Security ARR grew 63% to $9.10 billion, with nearly $1 billion in net new ARR added in the quarter alone. Remaining performance obligations rose 34% to $21.2 billion. Adjusted free cash flow hit $1.3 billion on $1.4 billion of operating cash flow, with roughly $2.51 billion in cash at quarter-end. The customer base now exceeds 70,000. That’s the market pricing agentic-threat risk in real time.

The GAAP line tells the strategic story. Palo Alto posted a $282 million net loss versus $254 million of net income a year ago, translating to –$0.35 per share. Two acquisitions explain the ink: roughly $25 billion for CyberArk, nearly $3.4 billion for Chronosphere, and now Console on top. This is a company converting balance sheet into an agentic-defense stack because it believes the attack surface has already shifted.

Management pointed to more than 2,000 customer briefings following Anthropic’s Mythos launch, up from roughly 1,200 the prior quarter. Enterprises are asking what happens when the attackers are the agents.

For owners running digital storefronts, the read-across is direct. A compromised ad account, a phished domain, a leaked customer list, each one severs the customer-acquisition funnel at the point where it monetizes. The 63% ARR growth is the enterprise budget line moving first. The small-business bill follows, as it did after the 2017 ransomware wave normalized endpoint spend.

Guidance came in above the Street: Q1 FY27 revenue of $3.30 to $3.31 billion versus $3.22 billion consensus, NGS ARR of $9.54 to $9.56 billion, non-GAAP EPS of $0.96 to $0.98.

Shares dropped 5% in the regular session, dipped roughly 2% after hours, then settled at $368.58, up about 3%. The stock has nearly doubled year to date. For related context, see our coverage of the AI earnings gauntlet pricing signals for SMBs and the trifecta proving agents pay.

Sources

About the author

Sebastian Pham

BANKING & FINANCE AI

Sebastian Pham reports from the London bureau on how the largest banks, insurers, and capital-markets firms are deploying agentic systems. His beat is bank-specific: headcount shifts, ops workflows, vendor selections inside tier-one institutions.