A New “Browser War” Is Coming: How AI Agents Are Reshaping Cybersecurity
Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora has sounded the alarm over the dawn of a new wave of “browser wars.”
Speaking during the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call, he observed that Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, and Perplexity are all developing agent-driven AI tools that require browser access to perform tasks such as booking reservations or searching for housing. According to him, technology companies will begin embedding their own versions of these agents directly into browsers, though enterprise customers are likely to treat such innovations with caution.
“What may benefit consumers poses serious risks for enterprises. No company wants a ‘lawless browser’ where agents operate unchecked,” he warned. In Arora’s view, businesses will ultimately prohibit the use of consumer-grade versions of these products and demand secure, enterprise-grade browsers instead.
Palo Alto already offers such a solution—Prisma Access Browser, integrated into its Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform, which unifies the company’s network security offerings.
Arora emphasized that Palo Alto’s strategy of “platformization”—selling clients integrated product suites—has been progressing successfully. He stressed that in a landscape where adversaries leverage AI and autonomous agents, organizations require comprehensive defense systems.
“We’ve reached the era of the 25-minute attack. The question is no longer how much you spend on security, but rather: How quickly can you detect and stop it? If it takes longer than 25 minutes, I have bad news—those agents will exfiltrate your data and compromise your organization,” he cautioned.
He further argued that defense requires consistent platforms capable of running secure, trusted agents. “We cannot deploy agents atop fragmented infrastructures. There is no agent that can seamlessly understand three different firewall vendors, two SASE providers, a browser, and seven other solutions,” he said.
Arora also noted that agent technologies could worsen the threat landscape, as adversaries will inevitably employ them to conduct attacks. Thus, in his view, artificial intelligence will act as a catalyst for infrastructure consolidation, driving niche players out of the market in favor of larger, more unified platforms.
Looking ahead, Arora identified AI-driven products, SASE, and virtual firewalls as the company’s key growth pillars—solutions that are rapidly gaining traction due to their agility and speed of deployment compared to traditional hardware-based systems.