At this year’s Fal.con, big-picture discussions have centered on the future of cybersecurity, with artificial intelligence rewriting the rules of the game. As adversaries now fine-tune AI to optimize attacks, security leaders are betting on a new generation of tools and strategies — such as agentic security — to stay ahead.

With AI reshaping both attack and defense, the industry’s bet on agentic security raises a key question: How is CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. leveraging its cybersecurity dominance to deliver a robust platform and a high-functioning product ecosystem?

“It seems to me that CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks are the two that are going after pure play,” said Dave Vellante (pictured, left), co-founder and analyst at theCUBE. “I don’t want to say dominance because nobody really dominates the security business, but the pure plays that are going to head toward $10 billion in annual recurring revenue with a growth trajectory that can take them further. They’re both $100 billion-plus market cap companies, and they both compete very effectively with Microsoft. They have two different strategies: CrowdStrike does these tuck-ins like Onum and Pangea, and integrates into the platform.”

Vellante was joined by fellow analyst Rebecca Knight (right), for a keynote analysis at Fal.con, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how, in the coming decade, cybersecurity won’t just be about tools — it will be about mastering agentic security to outpace ever-smarter threats. (* Disclosure below.)

Agentic security sees AI become the new threat battleground

The keynote from Michael Sentonas, president of CrowdStrike, makes one thing clear: AI is no longer just a tool for defenders — attackers are also weaponizing it. Cybercriminals are using AI to identify high-value data, craft persuasive psychological tactics and optimize ransom demands. This escalation has compelled the industry to reassess its entire security operations.

“The [return on investment] and the exfiltration value were not nearly as high as they are today,” Vellante said. “The industry has done a better job of closing that gap. At the same time, I think the arms race is still on, and the defenders are still at a disadvantage. As George Kurtz said, ‘The attackers can automate the attack, and all they have to do is succeed once.’”

CrowdStrike’s answer is the agentic security operations center— a shift from analysts manually handling alerts to orchestrating outcomes through AI-powered agents. These agents can automate detection, response and remediation, promising to transform SOCs from reactive “handlers” into proactive “commanders,” Vellante added.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Fal.con:

Photo: SiliconANGLE