Fatima Boolani

McGowan said Akamai offers both committed and on-demand models, but demand skews to longer-term committed deals with better ROI/visibility; most growth is from the committed model.

Leighton said AI is a tailwind for mature security too: attack scale up roughly 10x drives DDoS demand, and WAF sees emergency adoption ahead of AI-driven zero-days.

Tom clarified they support both models, large committed deals have lower pricing but guaranteed revenue, while on-demand has higher pricing with more expense. Ed said customers are driving demand for dedicated capacity due to scarcity. On funding, no issues financing from own capital, very profitable with $1.7 billion in cash, a $1 billion credit line, and excellent credit. Cash flow lower during heavy investment years but free cash flow is strong after initial deployment.

Tom said delivery trends for 2026 are comparable to the back half of 2025. Traffic environment reasonable, fewer players in market. Pricing remains competitive with some very low-price competitors Akamai won't match. Some price increases to offset rising memory costs. Overall expectations consistent with recent trends.

Tom described two Inference Cloud models: traditional GPU-by-the-hour/token (going GA later this quarter with initial 20 locations sold out) and a new cluster model selling hundreds or thousands of GPUs in specific locations with multiyear commitments. Ed added that early pipeline skews toward customers wanting guaranteed capacity with multiyear deals, which is the preferred model. Usage patterns for the rental model are still unknown.

Tom said current traffic is mostly video and software downloads. AI will increase video traffic as commerce sites adopt immersive personalized video experiences. Live sports will be customized per viewer. Reasonable prospect AI prevalence will favorably impact delivery.

Ed outlined: security gross margins high 80s, compute low 70s, delivery high 60s. Compute may dip slightly during build-out but can get to low 70s at scale. GPU-as-a-service could be slightly better due to scarcity pricing. Good operating leverage across all three segments.

Ed clarified ARR is defined as Q4 revenue times 4, not based on minimum commitments. It reflects whatever revenue is being generated in Q4 from those contracts.

Ed confirmed three or four really large CIS contracts signed, all with commitments. The two largest have minimum commitments with revenue ramping through the year. Very high confidence level in that revenue.

Tom confirmed the customer uses delivery, security, and growing cloud infrastructure services, and this is factored into all guidance.

Tom described this as a two-year process in beginning stages, covering ratio changes, specialized sellers, pricing/contract structure, and segmentation.

The analyst explicitly asked for metrics. Christiane Ohlgart described internal AI deployment and slower headcount growth in support, and John Whittle cited culture, but no metrics were shared.

Ken Xie explained the 26-year ASIC strategy and framed Intel as the key US manufacturing partner, though he gave no roadmap specifics or cost quantification.

Ken confirmed strong high-end growth driven by ASIC advantage. Growth is balanced with low-end SD-WAN and a new bundled service offering on Slide 14.

Christiane explained that service billings growth at 27% and deferred revenue growth of 15% are positive leading indicators, but the balance sheet to revenue conversion inherently lags.

Ken emphasized SASE as complementary to network security, not cannibalistic. Cited 3-in-1 branch solution (networking, network security, SASE in one FortiOS/FortiGate box) as unique advantage no competitor offers. Unit shipments in branch and retail growing very strongly.

Christiane confirmed 5-20% price increases on specific products depending on component exposure. Service pricing benefits as it is calculated as a percentage of list price, but the revenue impact will take longer to materialize. Product pricing impact expected in the next couple of quarters.

Christiane confirmed service revenue improvement expected in H2 2026, attributing the deceleration to negative product billings last year impacting attached rates. Some customers buying hardware ahead of service deployment.

Keith explained ~25-27% US exposure limits direct tariff impact, noted the dynamic situation with Latin America and Canada customer concerns, and expects pricing advantage to persist given broad market impact.

Jay cited broad-based product strength across Zero Trust Everywhere, Zero Trust Branch, data security and security for AI. Kevin added NRR was a consistent 115% each quarter and the security for AI pipeline rose 75% sequentially. Jay noted Fortune 500 penetration moved from 45% to 50% and a record quarter for new $1 million-plus ACV deals.

Kevin highlighted sixth consecutive quarter of sales productivity improvement and expects continued productivity and capacity growth in FY27, but cautioned it is too early to quantify specific contributions to the FY27 early look.

Kevin said securing renewals has positive ARR impact despite elevated churn. Red Canary was technology and talent acquisition, core to Agentic SOC. Teams consolidated Feb 1. Elevated churn commentary is transparency on what they're seeing.

Jay explained two growth vectors from SAP Rise: Zero Trust Cloud for SAP application workload communication, and user access to SAP via Zscaler instead of legacy ExpressRoute/Direct Connect. Reduces cost and deployment time.

Kevin confirmed Z Flex applies to both new and existing customers. Not fundamentally changing financial model, no direct consequence to financial metrics. Primary benefit is increasing TCV and ARR through larger deal sizes.

Jay said tariff impact limited. Macro tight but cyber budgets solid. Cost reduction pitch doubles customer interest. Not baking in strong federal in H2.

Remo explained no pull-forward. Scheduled billings split 7% H1 / 23% H2 is the key dynamic. Raised full-year guidance with pipeline supporting the guide.

Burt cited cloud, next gen SIEM and next gen identity as the standout Flex-driven products, with the combined ending ARR of $2.1 billion up 39%, framing Flex as enabling multi-product platform consolidation.

Kurtz differentiated CrowdStrike as a net data creator with real-time prevention capabilities that LLMs cannot replicate. Emphasized open platform with customer-created agents leveraging MCP services, compliance requirements, and millions of sticky workflows.

Kurtz confirmed AWS partnership does not limit other hyperscaler relationships, comparing to AI ecosystem where companies work with multiple partners. Multi-cloud support remains core.

Kurtz confirmed CCP Flex customers are burning through licenses ahead of schedule, creating earlier upsell opportunities as sellers shift to demand planning.

Prince declined to quantify Workers/Workers AI revenue, saying it isn't broken out, but affirmed Workers is now a meaningful revenue contributor driving pool-of-funds deals.

Prince said pool of funds represents customer trust and has a long runway at still relatively low revenue percentage. Seifert quantified: about 20% of Q4 ACV, mid-teens for full 2025. Higher variable revenue share means expect sequentially bigger Q4s and smaller Q1s compared to linear recognition.

Prince clarified AI inference is de minimis revenue (no customer >2% of revenue per Seifert). About 80% of AI companies use Cloudflare, often starting with security (Act 1) to prevent fraudulent queries, then expanding to inference. Cloudflare's edge proximity critical for latency-sensitive AI interactions, and higher utilization rates deliver lower cost than customers achieve on their own.

Prince described shift from ACV-based to revenue-based compensation for pool of funds deals. Territory discipline improved. Seifert noted major disruptions avoided during transformation.

Nikesh described partnerships with frontier labs and a new capability to build and deploy OT and open-source vulnerability signatures in under four hours versus a 55-day standard, with customer deployment timelines being the main gating factor.

Nikesh said Unit 42 is repurposed to frontier AI defense, with XSIAM agents already reducing median time to detect for customers.

Nikesh confirmed TAM expansion not internal modernization. Observability is the third enterprise data platform alongside security and IT. Vision of agentic capabilities across multiple data lakes for problem detection and remediation.

Nikesh described proactive outreach to top 500 QRadar customers, IBM providing migration services and rules conversion, with $1B hybrid pipeline across QRoC and on-prem. Expects to become top-three SIEM player within two years.