Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora on Where AI Goes Next

How long can any conviction about AI really hold when the technology keeps changing underneath it? At ICONIQ Frontier, Nikesh Arora, chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, joined ICONIQ’s Divesh Makan to open the day with a conversation about what it means to build and lead through a period of unusually rapid change. As Nikesh put it, “Every three, four months you get a curveball.” Drawing on a career spent navigating major shifts in technology, Nikesh shared how his own thinking has evolved as agents, open-weight models, and new approaches to inference have emerged. For founders and operators, the implication is bigger than deciding where to add AI. The more fundamental question is whether today’s products were designed for the world now taking shape, or whether some need to be rebuilt from first principles. That idea carried into a broader discussion about why startups can have an advantage when new categories emerge, how the economics of AI may evolve, and what Nikesh looks for in founders pursuing ideas that initially sit outside the consensus. The conversation also turned to cybersecurity, where AI is changing both the speed and nature of the threat. As models become better at finding and connecting vulnerabilities, Nikesh argued that companies will need to focus just as intensely on shortening the time it takes to detect and remove bad actors once they are inside. Key Moments 03:21 Why convictions about AI can change every few months 04:57 What long-running agents could mean for inference 06:06 How Nikesh thinks about the economics of AI 10:07 Why some products may need to be rebuilt from scratch 11:03 The Waymo, Tesla, and Mercedes analogy for AI 12:40 The AI business model trap 15:34 Where enterprise AI has become must-have 16:42 Why startups can outperform incumbents in new categories 19:28 How AI is changing cybersecurity 21:08 What happens as models get better at finding vulnerabilities 23:19 Why greater engineering productivity could mean building more 27:21 What Nikesh looks for in founders and new ideas Stay connected: Follow us on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3Th5cUH Follow us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3V8wH0b Follow us on X: https://bit.ly/4874SwQ Explore ICONIQ Insights: https://bit.ly/45Vj22R Disclaimer: iconiq.com/outreach-disclaimer