Google Cloud has agreed to a multiyear safety companies partnership with Palo Alto Networks as enterprise use of AI in cloud environments grows. A supply advised Reuters the deal is value near $10 billion over its lifetime.
The settlement marks Google Cloud’s largest safety companies deal thus far. Whereas monetary phrases weren’t disclosed publicly, the dimensions of the partnership displays rising concern amongst enterprises about how rapidly AI adoption is increasing assault surfaces in cloud infrastructure.
These issues are supported by Palo Alto Networks’ State of Cloud Report, revealed in December 2025. The report discovered that 99% of respondents had skilled no less than one assault on AI-related infrastructure over the previous yr. On the similar time, organisations are rising their reliance on cloud platforms to assist new AI instruments, including scale and complexity to already stretched safety groups.
Securing AI from improvement to deployment
The expanded partnership focuses on securing AI programs of their full lifecycle, from improvement via to manufacturing. Slightly than treating safety as a separate layer, the 2 corporations are aiming to combine safety instantly into how AI workloads are constructed, deployed, and accessed in hybrid and multicloud setups.
A key a part of the collaboration includes defending dwell AI workloads operating on Google Cloud. Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma AIRS platform will probably be used to safe AI programs working on companies like Vertex AI and Agent Engine. The instruments are supposed to cowl areas together with visibility into AI posture, runtime safety, agent behaviour, and mannequin testing. Developer instruments, together with the Agent Improvement Equipment, are additionally included, reflecting concern that safety gaps typically emerge early within the construct course of.
Community safety is one other focus. Palo Alto Networks’ VM-Sequence software program firewalls are being built-in extra tightly with Google Cloud to assist organisations apply constant safety controls in public, non-public, and hybrid environments. The purpose is to cut back friction for groups shifting workloads into the cloud whereas sustaining inspection and menace prevention requirements.
The partnership additionally addresses distant entry and distributed work. Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma SASE platform, which mixes networking and safety for customers exterior conventional workplaces, will run extra deeply on Google’s infrastructure. Prisma Entry operates on Google’s community, whereas Google Cloud Interconnect is used to hyperlink wide-area networks in clouds. Collectively, this setup is supposed to assist organisations hold safety insurance policies constant as customers entry AI functions from totally different places.
A deeper operational and business tie
Operational simplicity is one other acknowledged purpose. By pre-engineering integrations between their platforms, the 2 corporations are attempting to cut back the handbook effort required to attach instruments and handle insurance policies. The concept is to present safety groups a extra unified view in environments, permitting them to maneuver sooner with out including complexity.
Palo Alto Networks president BJ Jenkins stated boards are more and more centered on tips on how to use AI with out rising publicity. He described the partnership as a strategy to scale back the strain between sooner improvement and stronger safety, positioning safety as one thing that turns into a part of the platform quite than a blocker. In his phrases, the purpose is to make safety “a local a part of constructing what’s subsequent,” with AI-powered defences embedded instantly into Google Cloud.
The collaboration builds on an present relationship that already contains greater than 75 joint integrations and roughly $2 billion in gross sales via the Google Cloud Market. As a part of the brand new section, Palo Alto Networks can also be migrating key inside workloads onto Google Cloud underneath a separate multibillion-dollar settlement.
The corporate is moreover utilizing Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform and Gemini massive language fashions to assist its inside copilots. The steps deepen the technical ties between the 2 corporations and are supposed to make sure that prospects operating Palo Alto Networks on Google Cloud are utilizing programs designed to work collectively at scale.
The timing aligns with broader strikes within the cybersecurity market. Google has introduced plans to amass Wiz for $32 billion, whereas Palo Alto Networks expanded its AI-focused safety portfolio in October and accomplished its $3.35 billion acquisition of Chronosphere final month. Each corporations are responding to rising concern over AI-driven assault strategies and automatic threats.
Google Cloud chief gross sales officer Matt Renner stated prospects are more and more in search of safety and cloud platforms that work collectively quite than as separate layers. He framed the expanded partnership as a manner to make sure that organisations can safe necessary AI infrastructure whereas constructing new AI brokers with safety inbuilt from the beginning.
Analysts say the deal strengthens Google Cloud’s place in enterprise safety and AI infrastructure because it competes with Amazon and Microsoft. The partnership additionally carries private historical past: Palo Alto Networks chief govt Nikesh Arora beforehand served as Google’s chief enterprise officer.
Taken collectively, the settlement displays a broader shift in how enterprises take into consideration AI danger. As AI turns into extra embedded in every day operations, safety selections are more and more tied to platform decisions that will form how organisations construct and defend programs for years to return.
(Photograph by Scott Graham)
See additionally: Amazon and Google workforce as much as minimize multicloud downtime
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