Palo Alto Networks shifts hiring toward cyber-AI skills

Palo Alto Networks is building its AI capability around three groups: employees who can use AI and coding agents in their work; cybersecurity specialists with AI expertise; and AI researchers, including some AI PhDs focused on cybersecurity.

The company said 50% of its hires over the previous six months were early-career employees. Some candidates go through hackathons, and demonstrated ability to use AI and coding agents matters more than where they studied for the described roles. The company expects continued hiring of AI-savvy workers could eventually outnumber less AI-savvy employees.

Palo Alto Networks also supplements its internal expertise with third-party training companies. It said it does not need to compete with frontier-model developers for researchers building very large general-purpose models.