CrowdStrike and Okta Soar as AI Could Create “About 90” New Identities Per Worker
AI agents are multiplying inside corporate networks faster than security teams can track them, and two cybersecurity companies just proved that scramble translates directly into record-breaking revenue growth.
Artificial intelligence is dramatically increasing the need for cybersecurity solutions. On Thursday, August 27, CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD | CRWD Price Prediction) shares rose 20%, posting their best day ever, while Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA) rose 29-30%. Both companies beat earnings expectations and raised guidance, and both have more than doubled in 2026.
CNBC reporter MacKenzie Sigalos summarized the setup: “CrowdStrike and Okta surging after better-than-expected earnings and stronger guidance, with both companies saying that AI is driving more demand for their cybersecurity tools.“
AI Is Arming Attackers and Creating Millions of New Targets
Speaking on CNBC with Jim Cramer, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz described the current moment as “an arms race. With AI now making attacks easier to launch, at the same time that companies are deploying huge numbers of AI agents that now need to be secured.“ On the earnings call, CrowdStrike’s CEO expanded: “The world’s adoption of AI is rapidly expanding the attack surface. More models, more agents, more agentic applications, more data, and with that more identities, more permissions, more policies, more cyber attacks, and more risk.”
AI lowers attack costs while simultaneously multiplying the number of entities that need defense, because every agent deployed inside a company is a new identity, a new set of permissions, and a new monitoring surface. Kurtz added, “I think the AI DR business can be bigger than the EDR business, just given the pure number of agents which each person will have, which is estimated to be about 90.“
CrowdStrike Just Delivered the Best Quarter in Its History
CrowdStrike called Q2 FY27 the best quarter in company history. Net new ARR hit a record $333 million, accelerating to 51% year-over-year growth, and ending ARR reached $5.84 billion, up more than 25%. Total revenue was $1.47 billion, up 26%, and free cash flow came in at $377 million, or 26% of revenue. Non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.31 per diluted share, up 34% on a split-adjusted basis.
Management raised the FY27 net new ARR growth outlook to roughly 34% at the midpoint. Falcon Flex, the platform-consumption vehicle, shows the AI-security thesis in dollars. Flex ending ARR surpassed $2.29 billion, up 101% year over year, and AIDR ending ARR nearly tripled versus Q1.
Okta’s Identity Layer Meets the Agent Wave
Sigalos noted, “That is especially good news for Okta, because all of those agents need identities and permissions inside a company’s network. Okta says that it won dozens of AI-related deals last quarter.” If enterprises deploy agents at scale, each needs credentials and governance, which is Okta’s product surface.
Okta CEO Todd McKinnon framed identity as “the primary control plane for securing AI” and said Okta closed dozens of AI deals in Q2, including several million-dollar-plus deals, while cautioning that revenue impact is early.
In a single customer evaluation, Okta detected 50 instances of a Claude agent, and a few weeks later the count had grown to 1,500. Okta’s survey found 81% of CISOs were aware that agents had been deployed in their enterprises without an adequate security platform in place.
AI Security Is Breaking the Software Bear Case
CrowdStrike and Okta are demonstrating that AI can be a major growth engine for select software companies, not merely a competitive threat. Every new agent expands the attack surface and creates another identity that must be secured. The opportunity is enormous, but after both stocks nearly doubled in 2026, future results will need to keep pace with high expectations already embedded in their share prices.
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Thomas Richmond is a financial writer and content strategist with 5+ years of experience covering stocks and financial markets. He has published over 250 articles focused on individual stock analysis, helping investors better understand business fundamentals, stock valuations, and long-term opportunities.
Thomas previously served as a Content Lead at TIKR, a stock research platform, where he helped scale the company’s blog to hundreds of articles per month and contributed to a weekly newsletter reaching more than 100,000 investors.
He specializes in breaking down complex companies into clear, actionable insights for everyday investors, with a focus on fundamentals-driven research.
His work has also been featured on platforms including Seeking Alpha and Sure Dividend.
Outside of work, Thomas enjoys weight lifting and soccer.
