A deepened partnership aims to embed AI security across cloud infrastructure as enterprises confront a rising number of attacks on AI systems.
As enterprises accelerate their adoption of agentic artificial intelligence, security concerns are moving just as fast. On Thursday, Palo Alto Networks and Google Cloud announced a major expansion of their strategic partnership, aimed at embedding AI security directly into cloud infrastructure and application development.
The agreement combines Google Cloud’s AI and infrastructure services with Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma AIRS platform, positioning security as a foundational layer for building, deploying, and operating AI-driven systems across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
The timing is deliberate. According to Palo Alto Networks’ State of Cloud report, released in December, enterprises are rapidly expanding cloud usage to support AI workloads—yet nearly all surveyed organizations reported at least one attack on their AI infrastructure in the past year. The expanded partnership seeks to address that gap by integrating security across every stage of the AI lifecycle, from development tools to live production environments.
Under the new agreement, customers running AI workloads on Google Cloud—including services such as Vertex AI and Agent Engine—will be able to apply Prisma AIRS protections across models, data, and runtime operations. Security coverage will extend to developer tools, including Google’s Agent Development Kit, with capabilities that span AI posture management, runtime defense, agent security, model vulnerability scanning, and red teaming simulations.
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The collaboration also deepens technical integration across Palo Alto Networks’ broader portfolio. The company’s VM-Series software firewalls will integrate more closely with Google Cloud environments, enabling organizations to enforce consistent security policies while accelerating cloud adoption. Prisma SASE, Palo Alto’s secure access service edge platform, will run on Google’s global network, improving performance and security for users accessing cloud-based and AI-driven applications.
Executives framed the partnership as a response to board-level anxiety over AI risk.
“Every board is asking how to harness AI’s power without exposing the business to new threats,” said BJ Jenkins, president of Palo Alto Networks. “By embedding AI-powered security directly into Google Cloud, we’re making protection a native part of innovation, not a bolt-on afterthought.”
Matt Renner, President and Chief Revenue Officer of Google Cloud, said that customers are increasingly seeking integrated approaches to security as AI systems become more autonomous and complex. “This expansion ensures our joint customers can secure critical AI infrastructure and build new AI agents with security built in from the start,” he said.
The partnership builds on a long-standing commercial relationship between the two companies, which already includes more than 75 joint integrations and approximately $2 billion in sales through the Google Cloud Marketplace. As part of the expanded agreement, Palo Alto Networks will migrate key internal workloads to Google Cloud under a new multibillion-dollar commitment. They will use Google’s Vertex AI platform and Gemini large language models to power its internal copilots.
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Together, the moves underscore a broader shift in enterprise technology: as AI becomes core infrastructure, security is no longer a separate discipline—it is becoming part of the platform itself.
