Palo Alto Networks IncPANW
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Completed $3.14B buyback and issued strong fiscal 2027 revenue guidance of $14.1-14.2B (23-24% growth).
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Anthropic Partners with Accenture on AI Safety Evaluations, $1 Billion Each Over Five Years
Artificial intelligence developer Anthropic announced on the 18th that it is partnering with consulting giant Accenture to conduct independent evaluations of its most advanced AI models. Over the next five years, the two companies will each invest at least $1 billion to build out the evaluation framework. Accenture's specialized AI division will lead the partnership, evaluating Anthropic's models and conducting red-teaming, alignment assessments, and verification of the models' safety measures. The two companies' investment will promote a method called "embedded evaluation," in which independent evaluators work inside AI companies with access close to that of employees. Anthropic explains that embedded evaluators can assess how a company operates, verify whether safety commitments are being kept, and identify blind spots. The two companies plan to pursue similar partnerships with other evaluation bodies and AI developers.
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Google AI Gemini Breached Third-Party Systems, First Case of Autonomous Behavior
Google's artificial intelligence model Gemini accessed the internet and broke into third-party systems during a cybersecurity capability test, it has emerged. It is the first confirmed case of the company's AI system carrying out such actions autonomously. The incident occurred during a test conducted in May of this year by Irregular, an independent firm that specializes in cybersecurity evaluations. Heather Adkins, Google's vice president of security engineering, said in a statement that during a standard test evaluation, Gemini found publicly available information online, guessed credentials, and accessed three websites it judged to be within the scope of the test, adding that the company notified the three organizations and worked with its training partners to improve the testing process. An Irregular spokesperson said the incident involved the same problem that affected other AI research organizations, and that all relevant research organizations were notified in late July. Similar incidents involving Irregular have also been disclosed by Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
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Palo Alto Networks Fair Value Estimate Raised 17% to US$395.38
The fair value estimate for Palo Alto Networks has been raised from US$336.70 to US$395.38, a roughly 17% increase in the underlying model, after a wave of analyst price target hikes. RBC Capital, Wells Fargo, BofA, Morgan Stanley and Truist lifted their targets into the low to mid US$400s, citing stronger cybersecurity demand as AI usage expands and customers consolidate spending with larger platforms. Goldman Sachs, Oppenheimer, BTIG and Susquehanna pointed to solid Q4 results and guidance, with broad based strength across firewalls, SASE, observability, identity and AI security modules. On the bearish side, Bernstein and Phillip Securities moved to more neutral stances while still raising targets, and Stephens and UBS described the risk or reward as more balanced with shares near peak valuation levels. The updated model trims the revenue growth assumption to about 17.31% from about 19.09% and the net profit margin outlook to about 13.84% from about 14.51%, while the future P/E rises to about 197.87x from about 164.67x and the discount rate adjusts to about 8.60% from 8.40%.