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 informed Reuters the deal is value near $10 billion over its lifetime.
The settlement marks Google Cloud’s largest safety companies deal to this point. Whereas monetary phrases weren’t disclosed publicly, the size 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 a minimum of one assault on AI-related infrastructure over the previous yr. On the identical time, organisations are rising their reliance on cloud platforms to help new AI instruments, including scale and complexity to already stretched safety groups.
Securing AI from growth to deployment
The expanded partnership focuses on securing AI programs of their full lifecycle, from growth by way of to manufacturing. Quite than treating safety as a separate layer, the 2 corporations are aiming to combine safety straight into how AI workloads are constructed, deployed, and accessed in hybrid and multicloud setups.
A key a part of the collaboration entails defending stay AI workloads working on Google Cloud. Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma AIRS platform might be used to safe AI programs working on companies like Vertex AI and Agent Engine. The instruments are meant to cowl areas together with visibility into AI posture, runtime safety, agent behaviour, and mannequin testing. Developer instruments, together with the Agent Improvement Package, 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-Collection 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 goal is to cut back friction for groups transferring 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 outdoors 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 maintain safety insurance policies constant as customers entry AI functions from completely different places.
A deeper operational and industrial 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 thought is to offer 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 targeted on how you can use AI with out rising publicity. He described the partnership as a approach to scale back the strain between sooner growth and stronger safety, positioning safety as one thing that turns into a part of the platform reasonably 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 straight into Google Cloud.
The collaboration builds on an current relationship that already consists of greater than 75 joint integrations and roughly $2 billion in gross sales by way of the Google Cloud Market. As a part of the brand new section, Palo Alto Networks can also be migrating key inner 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 help its inner copilots. The steps deepen the technical ties between the 2 companies and are meant to make sure that clients working 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 clients are more and more searching for safety and cloud platforms that work collectively reasonably than as separate layers. He framed the expanded partnership as a approach to make sure that organisations can safe necessary AI infrastructure whereas constructing new AI brokers with safety in-built 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 government 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 threat. As AI turns into extra embedded in day by day operations, safety choices are more and more tied to platform selections which will form how organisations construct and defend programs for years to come back.
(Photograph by Scott Graham)
See additionally: Amazon and Google staff as much as lower multicloud downtime
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