Truist raised its price target on CrowdStrike Holdings to $300 from $245, keeping a Buy rating, as the firm sees growing cybersecurity needs tied to artificial intelligence supporting broader use of the company's platform. The call comes as CrowdStrike hosts its Fal.Con 2026 conference in Las Vegas, where investors are looking for more detail on future recurring-revenue growth. Analyst Junaid Siddiqui said the firm will watch for updated expectations around net new annual recurring revenue, longer-term targets, and product expansion. He also pointed to security challenges created by increasingly capable AI systems and autonomous agents, citing Anthropic's Claude Mythos model's ability to uncover software vulnerabilities. Truist now expects CrowdStrike could expand its role across identity controls, threat detection, AI governance, and protection of agent-based systems.
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.
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%.
Accenture and Anthropic Form AI Safety Partnership With $1B Each
Accenture and Anthropic have formed a new partnership to improve the safety of artificial intelligence, with each company pledging to invest at least $1B into the initiative over the next five years. Shares of Accenture jumped 6% during early post-market trading on Friday. The companies will deploy a team of embedded evaluators to work with Anthropic's internal teams and safety partners to evaluate and red-team models, conduct alignment assessments and test model safeguards. Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said safety requires both deep technical expertise and a clear understanding of how AI is used in the real world, calling embedded evaluation an emerging area. Accenture will lean on its recent acquisition of Faculty, a U.K.-based AI firm it completed buying in March, to help in the evaluations, according to Accenture Chief Technology Officer Marc Warner.
Crowdstrike Holdings Inc
Truist Financial Corp