Shares in both CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. an Okta Inc. fell more than 3% in late trading today despite both companies reporting earnings and revenue beats in their most recent quarter and providing outlooks ahead of expectations.

CrowdStrike, for its fiscal 2026 third quarter that ended on Oct. 31, reported adjusted earnings per share of 96 cents, up from 76 cents in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, on revenue of $1.23 billion, up 22% year-over-year.

Both figures were ahead of the 94 cents per share and revenue of $1.21 billion expected by analysts.

CrowdStrike’s strong figures were driven by customer growth. The company’s subscription revenue grew 21% year-over-year, to $1.17 billion, and annual recurring revenue rose 23% year-over-year, to $4.92 billion, as of the end of the quarter.

The main business highlight in the quarter was the company holding its annual Fal.Con 2025 conference, where CrowdStrike doubled down on the idea of autonomous cybersecurity by throwing its weight behind artificial intelligence-powered defense as the core of its future platform strategy. The company is promoting what it calls an Agentic Security Platform and Agentic Security Workforce, systems and user-defined agents that can orchestrate detection, response and remediation automatically.

CrowdStrike emphasized platform consolidation and unified defense architecture as strategic differentiators. Instead of companies patching together point products from multiple vendors, CrowdStrike is pushing for a single integrated “core” platform that brings asset data, identity data, threat intel and telemetry into one unified model, or what it calls its “Enterprise Graph.”

“CrowdStrike is the enabler of secure AI transformation with the right architecture, the right products and the right execution,” founder and Chief Executive George Kurtz said in the company’s earnings release. “Our single platform strategy coupled with the Falcon Flex subscription model unlocks consolidation, positioning CrowdStrike as the operating system of cybersecurity.”

For its fiscal fourth quarter, CrowdStrike expects adjusted earnings per share of $1.09 to $1.11 on revenue of $1.29 billion to $1.3 billion, and for the full year adjusted earnings of $3.70 to $3.72 on revenue of $4.797 billion to $4.807 billion. The full-year outlook was ahead of the $3.68 per share and revenue of $4.78 billion expected by analysts.

Okta reported adjusted earnings per share of 82 cents, up from 67 cents in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, on revenue of $742 million, up 12% year-over-year. Both adjusted earnings and revenue came in ahead of the 75 cents per share and $730.3 million expected by analysts.

The company saw subscription revenue of $724 million in the quarter, up 11% year-over-year, while its subscription backlog rose 17%, to $4.292 billion.

Business highlights in the quarter included Okta announcing on Sept. 25 new capabilities across the Okta Platform and Auth0 Platform designed to help enterprises securely adopt artificial intelligence agents. The capabilities allow organizations to build secure, standards-first AI agents that can be woven into an identity security fabric for end-to-end lifecycle management.

“We delivered another quarter of solid results highlighted by continued strength with large customers, adoption of new products like Okta Identity Governance and strong cash flow,” said o-founder and CEO Todd McKinnon. “Our modern, neutral identity platform enables companies to safely build, manage and govern every identity, including agents.”

For its fiscal fourth quarter, Okta expects adjusted earnings of 84 to 85 cents on revenue of $748 million to $750 million and for its full year, $3.43 to $3.44 per share and revenue of $2.906 billion to $2.908 billion. Like CrowdStrike, Okta’s full-year outlook was ahead of analyst expectations of $3.37 per share and revenue of $2.89 billion.

With both companies reporting solid figures all around, the question becomes why did both see very similar drops in share price in late trading? The best guess is that while the AI boom runs apace, perhaps investors don’t see CrowdStrike and Okta growing fast enough.

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE