Our Reimagined Partner Program Is Here

The cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve at an extraordinary pace. AI-driven threats are expanding the attack surface, demanding faster, more precise responses and greater resilience. At the same time, customers want fewer vendors, deeper integrations and trusted advisers who can help them achieve positive, measurable outcomes and reduce unnecessary complexity.

Meeting these challenges and expectations requires a potent combination of world-class technology and world-class partnership. That’s why, in 2026, Palo Alto Networks is evolving our partner program and unifying it with our value exchange framework.

We are excited to share that we have rolled out new program features. The changes we’re introducing are designed to strengthen how we work with our ecosystem across every partner motion – from resale and cosell to delivery, support and managed services. The goal of this evolution is simple: Create clearer, more scalable paths for growth and mutual success.

Why We’re Evolving to Meet the Demands of a Changing Market

The same forces transforming the cybersecurity landscape are also changing what it means to be a successful partner. As customers reduce their reliance on disparate point solutions, choose to consolidate platforms and lean harder on AI-driven automation, they’re turning to partners for much more than technology procurement. They want design guidance, integration expertise and ongoing, outcome-focused support.

Our partners are also clear about what they need from us. They’ve asked Palo Alto Networks for a partner program that is simpler to engage with, more predictable in how it rewards impact, and more closely aligned with how they build and deliver value across resale, services and managed offerings. Our partners also seek less complexity and more room to differentiate through their own investments and innovation.

The evolution of our partner program is our response not only to feedback from our partners but also to extensive market research. It will bring greater structure where our partners seek consistency, greater flexibility in how and where they innovate, as well as greater transparency in how the value they deliver is recognized. These strategic changes will help ensure our mutual customers benefit the most when they work with our vast and diverse ecosystem in today’s platform-first, outcome-driven marketplace.

A Unified Growth Model = Partner Program + Value Exchange

Palo Alto Networks NextWave Partner Program and value exchange framework were designed to work together, not as separate tracks, but as one powerful engine for driving growth. This unified framework makes it easier for partners to engage with us and get the most from the partner program. It rewards impact, expertise and customer success rather than focusing narrowly on transactions.

This evolved model is built on the foundation of three guiding principles:

• Predictability – Consistent expectations and program structures that support long-term planning.
• Repeatability – Enablement and tools that help partners scale practices with confidence.
• Profitability – Incentives, rebates and routes to growth tied directly to customer value.

The new framework can help partners build sustainable businesses while accelerating the adoption of platformized AI-powered security. Let’s take a look at the many benefits our partner ecosystem may experience through this reimagined program.

What Our Partners Can Expect

Our redesigned partner program enables greater alignment between the investments you make and the outcomes you achieve. Across Palo Alto Networks NextWave Partner Program, we’re strengthening how partners can scale, differentiate and grow their business with improvements in three key areas.

1. Access That Accelerates Scale

We’re expanding access to the tools and resources that can help partners reach customers faster and deliver solutions with confidence:

• Broader on-demand learning and persona-based enablement.
• Labs and demos that make it easier to showcase platform value.
• Improved quoting tools and API-driven automation that can ease operational friction.
• Enhanced support resources that improve quality delivery and the customer experience.

These and other capabilities can help reduce complexity and accelerate your ability to propose, design and deploy high-quality, platform-based solutions for customers.

2. Commitment That Reflects Intentional Investment

As the cybersecurity market evolves, so does the definition of partnership. Our newly evolved program introduces clearer expectations and meaningful rewards for partners who invest in specialization and growth. We’re raising the bar on the program’s standards:

• Higher bookings and growth targets.
• Increased specialization depth across key areas.
• New targeted rebates aligned to value creation.
• A strengthened global distribution strategy to support scale.

These enhancements will recognize partners who lean into the platform approach and drive meaningful impact for customers.

3. Profitability That Helps Fuel Long-Term Growth

A top priority for our updated program is helping partners build predictable, repeatable and profitable business practices in 2026 and beyond. Here are some of the measures we’re introducing:

• Default service quoting (Authorized Support Center and Authorized Professional Services) to help strengthen delivery economics.
• Incentive model that drives higher partner profitability on AI-enabled security solutions.
• Programmatic discounts and improved quoting tools to speed sales cycles.
• A new Partner Development Fund (PDF) to help partners build capabilities and pipeline.

Our aim is to create a more consistent, performance-driven model that supports partner strategy today and creates room for expansion tomorrow.

What These Changes Mean for Customers

A more connected and enabled partner ecosystem doesn’t just benefit our partners. It elevates the entire customer experience.

Customers can expect smoother, simplified engagement with trusted cybersecurity advisers who speak the same language and share the same goals. And with greater consistency across sales, delivery and ongoing support, organizations won’t be saddled by complexity that slows transformation and makes it harder to adopt, build and deploy AI boldly yet safely.

Customers can also move forward with greater confidence in expanding their use of our Palo Alto Networks integrated, AI-driven cybersecurity platform, knowing their partners are equipped with the training, tools and know-how to help guide them every step of the way.

Driving Shared Success Through the Value Exchange

The value exchange in cybersecurity reinforces a principle that has long guided the approach of Palo Alto Networks to partnering: Growth follows value creation. It’s the foundation for how we work with our ecosystem, strengthening connections among partners, customers and our platform.

This is the power of a global ecosystem moving with purpose. When platform innovation, partner expertise and customer needs are aligned, everything moves faster and desired outcomes are more readily achieved. Deployments accelerate, architectures are simplified, and enterprises gain the resilient security postures needed to withstand the pressures of an AI-driven threat landscape.

What’s Next

We encourage you to review a set of short videos in The Learning Center for Partners, which provide more details about the planned changes to Palo Alto Networks NextWave Partner Program.

We believe the year ahead offers one of the most significant opportunities for innovation and growth our ecosystem has ever seen. By reimagining our partner program and value exchange framework, Palo Alto Networks is doubling down on the promise of our shared success, mutual growth and long-term value.

To our partners, thank you, as always, for your commitment, collaboration and belief in what we’re creating together. What’s ahead is more than an evolution of a long-standing and successful partner program. It’s a new era of partnering with precision to build the future of cybersecurity.

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Key Takeaways

• A reimagined partner program accelerates sustainable growth. Beginning in early February, a single, scalable framework will guide every partner motion and reward meaningful impact.
• Partners have more ways to scale and differentiate. Expanded enablement, automation and incentives can help build stronger, more profitable practices.
• Customers will benefit from more consistent experiences. A more aligned ecosystem enables simpler engagement, smoother delivery and increased confidence in the platform.

Forward-Looking Statements

This blog contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including, without limitation, statements regarding the benefits, impact, or performance or potential benefits, impact or performance of our products and technologies or future products and technologies. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and there are a significant number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from statements made in this blog. We identify certain important risks and uncertainties that could affect our results and performance in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, and our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from time-to-time, each of which are available on our website at investors.paloaltonetworks.com and on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements in this blog are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we do not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements provided to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

The post New Year, New Program, New Opportunities appeared first on Palo Alto Networks Blog.

If 2025 proved anything, it’s that no one wins alone in cybersecurity. AI-driven threats accelerated, and environments grew more complex while enterprises pushed hard for simplicity, integrated protection and security outcomes that deliver measurable results and meaningful value.

In response, we saw our partners around the globe lean into integration, treat AI as a built-in advantage and use the strength of our ecosystem as a force multiplier. The result: What could have been a disruptive year instead became one defined by growth and learning across our partner community.

Now, those lessons are guiding how Palo Alto Networks plans to partner with even greater precision in 2026. We remain a channel-first company that’s all-in on our ecosystem and united with our partners in a shared purpose to protect our customers’ digital future. But we also intend to double down in several areas in the year ahead, and we’re asking our partners to join us in doing the same.

1. Simplifying Security Through Integration

One message from customers that came through loud and clear in 2025 is that complexity is the enemy of resilience. Many enterprises are grappling with tool sprawl – multiple consoles, disconnected policies and overlapping investments that slow down their teams when speed and agility matter most.

The partners who delivered some of the most transformative results for organizations this year were those who chose integration over complexity and collaboration over siloed tools. With a laser focus on simplifying security, they were able to help customers:

• Consolidate fragmented point tools onto a unified security platform.
• Align visibility across the network, cloud and security operations center (SOC), so teams can respond faster.
• Build architectures with zero trust and AI-powered detection at the core.

We saw this simplifying-security trend through integration across our ecosystem. Partners unified cloud security and detection workflows through Cortex^® Cloud™ and Cortex. Teams modernized network architectures with tighter integration across our platform. We expect this activity to only accelerate in the coming year as our cloud security offerings continue to evolve.

When we innovate together, customers gain stronger defenses and a faster time-to-value. That’s why Palo Alto Networks has invested so heavily in platformization. When you connect our capabilities across network security, cloud security and security operations (wrapping them with your consulting, delivery and managed services) customers can experience something fundamentally better. With fewer gaps and clearer signals, they can build a security posture that’s built for the speed of modern threats.

In 2026, deep integration will remain a cornerstone of how we partner with precision. We’ll continue aligning our portfolio, programs and joint engagement model, so you can build offerings that reduce complexity for customers and create stronger differentiation for your business.

2. Making AI a Built-in Advantage

At Palo Alto Networks, our approach to AI in cybersecurity is straightforward. We believe AI must be embedded, not bolted on. It has to live in the data, analytics and workflows your teams rely on every day. That’s the thinking behind Precision AI^®, and it’s why we built AI capabilities into our platform’s core.

Partners who treated AI as a platform capability rather than a standalone tool delivered some of the strongest outcomes for customers in 2025. They were able to meet customers’ needs and deliver business outcomes in a single, unified approach. They helped organizations:

• Detect and respond to threats faster with AI-assisted analytics.
• Use automation to streamline change, investigation and response workflows.
• Tie AI to tangible outcomes, such as reduced risk, higher productivity and a better user experience.

In 2026, we’ll double down on AI across the platform and invest in the tools, content and enablement you need to bring those capabilities to life. Our focus is on making it easier for you to build AI-powered services that are repeatable and aligned to the outcomes customers expect.

Upcoming program changes reflect that intent. We’ll promote next-generation security as a growth engine and invest in ways that strengthen partner profitability across consulting services, resale, quality delivery, technical support and managed security services.

3. Ensuring Our Ecosystem Can Be a Growth Engine for Everyone

As AI raised the bar for both attackers and defenders in 2025, the partners who leaned into platformization and outcome-driven services were the ones who helped customers stay ahead of the curve. Those successes are now shaping how we strengthen and scale the partner ecosystem in 2026.

Our ecosystem isn’t just a route to market; it’s intended to be an economic engine for everyone involved. This year, many partners grew their business by building practices around our platform and aligning their services with where customers needed the most support: strategy, implementation, optimization, ongoing operations. We saw especially strong momentum from partners’ expansions:

• Consulting and advisory services around zero trust and AI-driven transformation.
• Resale opportunities centered on platform consolidation and next-generation security.
• Quality delivery and technical support that keep deployments reliable and current.
• Managed security services that give customers 24/7 protection and expert oversight.

These achievements reflect the value exchange at the heart of our ecosystem. Palo Alto Networks invests in platformization, AI and enablement, while our partners bring delivery expertise, regional insight and service innovation. Together, we create outcomes neither of us could deliver alone.

In 2026, we plan to build on that momentum and drive even greater partner profitability. Program evolutions will focus on growth across the full lifecycle, from initial design and implementation to long-term operation and optimization. We’re also expanding collaboration with our technology alliances to build new joint offerings and solution plays that the ecosystem can take to market together.

When we combine our platform, your expertise and the capabilities of our Alliance partners, then customers gain more paths to adopt next-generation security with confidence, and you gain more opportunities to develop differentiated, high-value practices.

Keeping Customers at the Center

At the heart of every partner collaboration is the customer, of course. Everything we build, integrate and advance together starts and ends with protecting them. This year, ecosystem alignment delivered measurable impact for our customers across industries. When partners lead with integrated solutions anchored in our platform, organizations saw visible improvements:

• Faster deployment of secure solutions.
• Reduced complexity with unified visibility.
• Greater confidence in defending against today’s AI-driven threats.

We saw this firsthand in joint wins across cloud security transformations, zero trust modernization and AI-assisted threat detection. When our ecosystem moves together, customers can move faster, operate more securely and achieve meaningful outcomes. Customer success is the foundation of everything we do as a partner-led organization, and it will remain our North Star in 2026.

Partnering with Precision in 2026 and Beyond

What we learned and achieved together in 2025 points us toward a clear focus for 2026 to advance ecosystem-led innovation, so we can deliver outcomes that matter most to our customers.

With that mission in mind, we will focus on the following four priorities:

• Deeper Integration – Expanding API partnerships and strengthening interoperability across the platform.
• Co-Innovation – Enabling partners to build solutions tailored to industry needs and use cases.
• Empowered Enablement – Investing in learning, automation and AI capabilities that fuel differentiated, profitable services.
• Simplified Engagement – Streamlining programs and tools, so that partnering with us is faster and more rewarding.

These priorities highlight the real strength of our ecosystem: How platformization, AI and partner expertise come together to enable what we could not build alone.

Finally, to our partners and customers, thank you. Your trust, collaboration and commitment push us to innovate boldly and continuously. As we enter the new year, I’m excited about what we’ll build together. When we align our AI-powered platform, our partner programs and your expertise in delivery, services and managed security, we can deliver something far greater than a set of solutions.

We’re a powerful team that’s not just defending against what’s next; we’re defining the future of cybersecurity. And together, we’re unstoppable.

Partners, join us in shaping the next chapter of secure, AI-powered innovations. Connect with your Channel Business Manager to align on 2026 opportunities, upcoming program updates and ways we can elevate customer outcomes together. Visit the partner portal to learn more.

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Key Takeaways

• Integration beats complexity.
  Unifying technology, data and expertise drove the strongest outcomes in 2025, helping partners reduce risk and accelerate time-to-value for customers.
• AI is a built-in advantage.
  By tapping into AI embedded across our cybersecurity platform, partners can address security and business outcomes simultaneously and deliver repeatable, profitable, AI-powered services.
• The partner ecosystem is a growth engine, and together, we’re unstoppable.
  Our 2026 priorities focus on deeper integration, coinnovation, empowered enablement and simplified engagement that drive partner profitability and stronger customer outcomes.

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