Latest news with #CharlotteAI
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
CRWD Q1 Earnings Call: Falcon Flex Model Accelerates Adoption Amid Revenue Miss
Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) fell short of the market's revenue expectations in Q1 CY2025, but sales rose 19.8% year on year to $1.10 billion. Its non-GAAP EPS of $0.73 per share was 10.6% above analysts' consensus estimates. Is now the time to buy CRWD? Find out in our full research report (it's free). Revenue: $1.10 billion (19.8% year-on-year growth) Adjusted EPS: $0.73 vs analyst estimates of $0.66 (10.6% beat) Adjusted Operating Income: $201.1 million vs analyst estimates of $177.9 million (18.2% margin, 13.1% beat) Revenue Guidance for Q2 CY2025 is $1.15 billion at the midpoint, below analyst estimates of $1.16 billion Adjusted EPS guidance for the full year is $3.50 at the midpoint, beating analyst estimates by 1.3% Operating Margin: -11.3%, down from 0.8% in the same quarter last year Annual Recurring Revenue: $4.44 billion at quarter end, up 21.6% year on year Billings: $1.15 billion at quarter end, up 22.4% year on year Market Capitalization: $121.7 billion CrowdStrike's first-quarter results reflected the rapid adoption of its Falcon Flex platform model, which management cited as a driver for larger, faster, and longer customer commitments. CEO George Kurtz detailed how customers are increasingly consolidating security tools onto the Falcon platform, with 'reflexes'—repeat purchases—occurring much earlier than anticipated. Executive leadership pointed to significant customer wins in cloud security, identity protection, and next-generation SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), supported by strong partner and managed service provider momentum. Kurtz highlighted that customers embracing Falcon Flex were deploying more modules at a faster rate, signaling a shift in buying patterns and platform stickiness. Management's guidance for the coming quarters centers on the ongoing shift to platform consolidation and accelerated customer adoption of new modules, particularly in response to the growth of AI-driven security needs. CFO Burt Podbere said, 'We expect these investments to fuel our growth in the back half of the year and beyond as we progress toward our long-term targets.' Leadership emphasized that the Falcon Flex model, coupled with advancements in AI capabilities like Charlotte AI, positions CrowdStrike to capture expanding demand for unified security solutions. The company also expects operating margin improvement from strategic realignment and increased focus on high-growth product areas. CrowdStrike's leadership attributed first-quarter outcomes to rapid Falcon Flex adoption, broad-based product uptake, and increased enterprise demand for integrated security as organizations address expanding digital and AI-driven attack surfaces. Falcon Flex drives customer expansion: Management explained that the Falcon Flex subscription model is leading to larger, longer-term deals, with customers burning through contract capacity faster—often returning for additional purchases ("reflexes") within months. This model streamlines procurement and encourages clients to consolidate multiple cybersecurity tools onto the Falcon platform, deepening customer engagement and speeding up platform adoption. AI product integration accelerates adoption: The company highlighted the role of Charlotte AI, its agentic security analyst, in transforming Security Operations Centers (SOCs) through automation and faster threat response. Kurtz cited Charlotte AI's growing adoption as a factor in large customer expansions, particularly with next-gen SIEM and cloud security deployments. Growth in cloud, identity, and SIEM: Management reported notable acceleration in cloud security, identity protection, and next-generation SIEM product lines. These offerings are increasingly replacing legacy solutions, as customers seek unified, AI-powered security across endpoints, cloud workloads, and identities. This trend was underscored by high-profile wins in both the technology and healthcare sectors. Partner and MSSP channel momentum: CrowdStrike's partner ecosystem played a larger role this quarter, with 60% of annual deal value sourced through partners and managed security service providers (MSSPs) now accounting for over 15% of deal value. This reflects expanding reach into new customer segments and geographies. Temporary headwinds from contract programs: CFO Burt Podbere noted that recent customer and partner contract programs (like CCP) created a temporary separation between annual recurring revenue (ARR) and recognized subscription revenue. Management expects this effect to subside by year-end, with overall ARR growth reaccelerating in the second half as more customers renew and expand their Flex contracts. Looking ahead, CrowdStrike's outlook is shaped by continued platform adoption, AI-driven security needs, and operational efficiency initiatives. Platform consolidation momentum: Management anticipates that the trend of customers consolidating security tools onto the Falcon platform will continue, boosted by the rapid adoption of Falcon Flex. This is expected to drive increased annual recurring revenue and customer retention as organizations seek integrated solutions amid rising cyber threats. AI and next-gen product expansion: The company is prioritizing investments in AI-powered products like Charlotte AI, cloud security, exposure management, and next-gen SIEM. Leadership believes these areas will be key growth drivers, as enterprises increasingly require advanced automation and real-time threat detection. Operational realignment and margin focus: CrowdStrike is implementing a strategic realignment to reallocate resources toward high-growth product lines and internal automation. Management expects these changes to contribute to operating margin expansion and improved free cash flow margin, with targeted benefits materializing by next year. In future quarters, the StockStory team will monitor (1) the pace of Falcon Flex contract expansions and frequency of reflexes, (2) the adoption rate of Charlotte AI and other next-generation modules, and (3) evidence of margin improvement from realignment efforts. Additionally, we will track progress in partner and MSSP channels as indicators of broader platform reach and customer engagement. CrowdStrike currently trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 24.2×. Should you double down or take your chips? See for yourself in our full research report (it's free). The market surged in 2024 and reached record highs after Donald Trump's presidential victory in November, but questions about new economic policies are adding much uncertainty for 2025. While the crowd speculates what might happen next, we're homing in on the companies that can succeed regardless of the political or macroeconomic environment. Put yourself in the driver's seat and build a durable portfolio by checking out our Top 5 Strong Momentum Stocks for this week. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 183% over the last five years (as of March 31st 2025). Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,545% between March 2020 and March 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-micro-cap company Tecnoglass (+1,754% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Should You Buy CrowdStrike Stock Before June 3?
CrowdStrike has become one of the world's largest cybersecurity companies thanks to its Falcon platform. However, revenue growth is decelerating as the business matures, which might put its lofty valuation at risk. 10 stocks we like better than CrowdStrike › On June 3, CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) will report results for its fiscal 2026's first quarter, which ended on April 30. The cybersecurity giant is hoping to put its fiscal 2025 firmly in the rear-view mirror, as the year was marred by a devastating gaffe -- the flawed software update it released on July 19 that crashed around 8.5 million Windows computers run by its clients, disrupting the operations of banks, airlines, healthcare providers and more. That incident took a near-term toll on CrowdStrike's business, but management's latest guidance suggests that it won't suffer any lingering long-term effects. That's great news because the digital landscape is growing increasingly dangerous, so cybersecurity providers like CrowdStrike have enormous opportunities in front of them. CrowdStrike's flagship Falcon platform is one of the only all-in-one solutions in the industry. It makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to protect cloud networks, employee identities, endpoints, and more. But should investors buy CrowdStrike stock ahead of its June 3 report? Historically, the cybersecurity industry was fragmented -- the various providers specialized in specific product segments, which meant businesses had to piece their security stacks together from multiple vendors. As a result, achieving adequate protection was often expensive and complicated, which helps explain why CrowdStrike's Falcon platform has become so popular. Falcon features 29 different modules (products), but businesses can pick and choose which ones they want, so they can create a custom solution that's suited to them. During its fiscal 2025 fourth quarter (which ended Jan. 31), 67% of CrowdStrike's customers were using at least five modules, which was a record-high percentage. But CrowdStrike launched a new subscription option in late 2023 called Falcon Flex that allows businesses to reallocate their budgets to different modules as their needs change during their contract periods. As a result, Flex subscribers try an average of nine modules each. These introductions to products they might not have selected initially could lead to clients spending more money with CrowdStrike over the long term. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the secret behind Falcon's success. Its goal is to automate as many threat detection and incident response processes as possible. The company's AI models are trained on new security incidents each day, so they are constantly learning and improving, allowing Falcon to seamlessly operate in the background to protect customers. But CrowdStrike also developed Charlotte AI, a powerful virtual assistant that's embedded into Falcon. It's especially useful for larger organizations with complex digital environments, and saves cybersecurity managers over 40 hours per week (on average) by autonomously filtering alerts and only surfacing incidents that actually need attention. CrowdStrike's quarterly revenue growth has steadily decelerated over the last few years. The company is maturing, and its revenue base has become so large that it's difficult to maintain lightning-fast growth. The July 19 global IT outage -- which was triggered by a flawed Falcon software update -- certainly didn't help. Management said most of its prospective new customers remained in its sales pipeline, but many of them decided to delay signing their deals. Plus, the company offered "customer commitment packages" that included discounted Falcon Flex subscriptions to its many affected clients. Those packages have been a headwind to the cybersecurity giant's revenue growth recently, but they likely have increased the odds that those customers will stick with Falcon for the long term. In fact, management said the packages have accelerated the adoption of its Flex subscriptions, so CrowdStrike could earn back what those discounts and incentives cost it over time. Nevertheless, revenue growth is expected to continue trending down on a percentage basis for now. CrowdStrike's guidance for the fiscal 2026 first quarter was for $1.1 billion in revenue, which would be a year-over-year increase of just 20%. However, it's important to note that management has maintained its long-standing outlook that it will reach $10 billion in annual recurring revenue by fiscal 2031, up from $4.2 billion today. CrowdStrike stock isn't cheap right now. It's trading at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 28.6, which is a steep premium to its main competitors in the cybersecurity industry. In the past, CrowdStrike has thoroughly deserved its premium valuation because it was growing its revenue so much faster than its peers. However, Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, and SentinelOne grew their revenue by 15%, 23%, and 29%, respectively, in their most recent quarters. Therefore, CrowdStrike no longer has a clear edge in that department, so investors would be right to call its valuation into question. With that said, if the company does grow its annual recurring revenue by 135% to $10 billion by fiscal 2031, its stock might actually be cheap right now for investors who are willing to hold it for the next five or six years. But that long-term outlook is key, because there is no guarantee the stock will deliver positive returns over the next one or two years given its lofty valuation. As a result, the answer to the question of whether investors should buy CrowdStrike stock before June 3 depends entirely on their ability and willingness to hold it for the long run. Short-term traders should probably stay away for now. Before you buy stock in CrowdStrike, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and CrowdStrike wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $653,389!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $830,492!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 982% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 Anthony Di Pizio has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends CrowdStrike and Zscaler. The Motley Fool recommends Palo Alto Networks. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Should You Buy CrowdStrike Stock Before June 3? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Korea Herald
08-05-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
Great Place To Work® Announces Australia's Best Workplaces™ in Technology List 2025
SYDNEY, May 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Great Place To Work® Australia proudly announces its 2025 Best Workplaces™ in Technology List, honouring 55 of the nation's most outstanding technology employers. Now in its third year, this prestigious list recognises organisations that lead with trust, purpose, and innovation, elevating employee experience and setting benchmarks for excellence in the tech industry. Recognising Excellence in a Fast-Moving Sector Technology is a thriving industry in Australia, with forecasts predicting it will contribute A$250 billion to the national economy by 2030. In 2023, the Minister for Skills and Training, the Hon Brendan O'Connor, noted that Australia's tech workforce had grown 8% year-on-year, placing the country on track to achieve the national goal of 1.2 million technology-related jobs by 2030. As one of the fastest-growing sectors, technology is crucial in driving employment. The 2025 Best Workplaces in Technology List highlights the organisations that are helping this growth by building workplaces based on trust, inclusivity and purpose. The 2025 list is based on confidential employee feedback from 28,102 voices across Australia's tech sector, rigorously evaluated through the Great Place To Work Trust Index™ survey. While the methodology remains unchanged, the stories of progress, empowerment, and resilience continue to evolve. "The 2025 Best Workplaces in Technology list celebrates 55 companies that are not only great employers but powerful industry leaders," said Rebecca Moulynox, General Manager, Great Place To Work Australia & New Zealand. "What sets these organisations apart is their ability to foster innovation through cultures of trust, purpose, and inclusion. In a highly competitive and fast-moving sector, these companies are proving that strong leadership and a great employee experience are key drivers of sustained performance and market advantage." Top Performers: Where Innovation Meets Impact This year, CrowdStrike, which has demonstrated impressive technological advancements through innovations such as Charlotte AI, takes the top spot in the medium and large category. CrowdStrike excels in inclusive leadership, mental health initiatives, and community engagement; they build a culture where well-being is a priority. Smokeball ranks among the top for its exceptional employee-centred practices, including a $1,000 wellness allowance, dedicated 'reboot days' and robust hybrid work flexibility. Their holistic well-being programmes have led to lower employee turnover and demonstrated high morale across the organisation. Centorrino Technologies (CT) makes a notable debut with a strong people-first approach, carbon neutrality since 2019, and a bold goal to offset all historical emissions by 2025. Their inclusive workplace is grounded in empathy, empowerment, and community partnerships, like supporting EatUp. What Makes These Workplaces Stand Out? All companies on this year's list share a foundation of high-trust workplace cultures. They invest in leadership, employee development, mental health, and purpose-driven strategies. From flexible work environments and structured recognition programs to community initiatives and sustainability goals, these companies exemplify what it means to lead through people. Notable standouts include: Raising the Bar for Australia's Tech Ecosystem This year's list doesn't just recognise great companies but shows that in an era defined by rapid digital transformation and talent competition, workplace culture is not just a people priority but it's essential for business success. Early trends reinforce that employee-centric practices drive business performance, from better retention to stronger employer branding and innovation outcomes. As such, the 2025 Best Workplaces in Technology List serves as both a recognition and a call to action for the industry. Explore the Full List To view the complete list of Australia's Best Workplaces in Technology 2025 and learn how your organisation can earn recognition next year, visit the Great Place To Work Australia website. Great Place To Work is the global authority on workplace culture. Our mission is to help every place become a great place to work for all. We give leaders and organisations the recognition and tools to create a consistently and overwhelmingly positive employee experience, fostering cultures that are proven to drive business, improve lives, and better society. Our recognition is the most coveted and respected in the world for elevating employer brands to attract the right people. Our proprietary methodology and platform enable organisations to truly capture, analyse, and understand the experience of all employees. Our groundbreaking research empowers organisations to build cultures that retain talent and unlock the potential of every employee. Our coaches, content, and community connect the boldest leaders, ideas, and innovations in employee experience. Since 1992, our Certification™, Best Workplaces Lists, and global benchmarks have become the industry standard, built on data from more than 100 million employees in 150 countries around the world.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CrowdStrike's CTO says humans are still critical in battling cyberattacks—even with gen AI advancements
Elia Zaitsev says most software companies exist for one purpose: to make their customers happy. But what he finds most thrilling about his 12-year career at cybersecurity company CrowdStrike is that it has to please clients, while also making the bad actors it fights against unhappy. 'There's a determined adversary on the other side of the table who's doing everything they can, with significant resources and time and expertise, to circumvent everything that's being developed,' says Zaitsev, CrowdStrike's chief technology officer. Those adversaries—espionage attacks that have increased from nations like China and Iran, as well as new generative artificial intelligence-driven phishing and impersonation tactics—have propelled a sharp increase in malware-free, identity-based attacks. And as businesses migrate more workloads to the cloud, those environments have also become a more frequent target too, with new and unattributed intrusions increasing 26% last year from 2023. Rather than look for a vulnerability on an external server, these nefarious individuals and organizations are using generative AI and other tools to develop convincing text, audio, and video to infiltrate systems. What that means is that fraudulent emails coming from a company's 'help desk' asking for a password are now often more polished than prior attempts that were often riddled with easy-to-spot mistakes. The cautionary tale on the lips of every cyber expert, including Zaitsev, is an incident last year in which a finance worker in Hong Kong was scammed out of $25 million after fraudsters used a deepfake to pose as a chief financial officer during a video conference call. 'They're relying on the weakest link, often in defenses, which is the human,' says Zaitsev. These evolving tactics are why CrowdStrike reports that the average breakout time for an intrusion—the moment an adversary is able to move laterally throughout a company's system after initially gaining access—has dropped to 48 minutes in 2024 from 62 minutes the prior year. The fastest breakout CrowdStrike reported was just 51 seconds, giving defenders less than a minute to detect and respond to an attack. CrowdStrike has bulked up its cyber defenses through a series of acquisitions, including Preempt Security and SecureCircle, a cybersecurity provider that requires identity verification for every access request, regardless of location. CrowdStrike has also invested in new product development, including this week's debut of Charlotte AI's agentic capabilities, which asks and answers investigative questions, helping to streamline cyber attack analysis and give security experts more time to act. Charlotte AI's accuracy rate is over 98%, according to Zaitsev, meaning that the generative AI tool comes to the same conclusion as human analysts 98 times out of 100 when assessing either a true positive or false positive attack. But humans can take about five minutes, on average, to perform this triage versus seconds Charlotte AI. That can save large enterprise customers up to seven days of human labor, per week. Zaitsev says even as these generative AI-enabled defenses advance, he doesn't see them replacing humans. Because even with the high effectiveness rate, many customers will continue to want their workforces to remain accountable to ensure cyber safety. 'We're short on humans,' says Zaitsev. 'What we want to do is augment them, make them more and more efficient, and also use them as the guardrail, as the check and balance.' Zaitsev was an early employee at CrowdStrike, joining as its first sales engineer in 2013 and rising up the ranks over a decade. He became acquainted with CrowdStrike CEO and founder George Kurtz and other executives when they were at security software company McAfee for a partnership with Zaitsev's former employer i2, which provides visual investigative analysis software for governments and law enforcement. He was elevated to the role of CTO in 2023, after running technology for the Americas business for nearly three years, following the promotion of his predecessor Michael Sentonas, who is now president. 'I always ground myself in and use that customer-facing perspective to try and understand not only what is the competition doing, but what are the customers looking to do,' says Zaitsev. He remains hands-on and technical—never a programmer, but having been a coder for decades—enabling Zaitsev to build trust with CrowdStrike's engineering team. Externally, trust in CrowdStrike eroded last summer, when a global IT outage due to a faulty software update crashed millions of Windows-based devices, stinging airlines, banks, retailers, and other customers, while costing Fortune 500 companies billions in damages. 'The July incident was very painful for them and for us,' acknowledges Zaitsev. CrowdStrike, he says, learned valuable lessons from the experience and incorporated customer feedback to bolster controls and capabilities to prevent another outage. The company also offered incentives for a time to keep enterprises from defecting to competitors. CrowdStrike's financial results following the incident remained resilient. Total and subscription revenue—the latter generally a one-to-three-year commitment—each increased 36% in fiscal 2024 from the prior year. The stock has recovered from a sharp selloff in July. 'I think we have come out of this, frankly, stronger,' says Zaitsev. John Kell Send thoughts or suggestions to CIO Intelligence here. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CrowdStrike Holdings (NasdaqGS:CRWD) Launches AI-Driven Cybersecurity Innovations Revolutionizing SOC Operations
CrowdStrike Holdings recently introduced groundbreaking AI-powered solutions, including Charlotte AI and Falcon Adversary OverWatch, which have significantly enhanced the company's cybersecurity operations. These advancements could have contributed to the company's stock price increase of nearly 19% last month. While broader markets showed volatility due to economic concerns and fluctuating tech stocks, including declines in giants like Nvidia and Tesla, CrowdStrike's innovative announcements likely bolstered its position, counterbalancing broader market movements. This positive momentum underscores their strong foothold in the cybersecurity sector, with technological advancements enhancing their appeal to investors. We've identified 1 possible red flag for CrowdStrike Holdings that you should be aware of. This technology could replace computers: discover the 21 stocks are working to make quantum computing a reality. The recent introduction of CrowdStrike's AI-powered solutions, including Charlotte AI and Falcon Adversary OverWatch, aligns well with the company's strategic initiatives like Falcon Flex and AI capabilities mentioned in the analysis. These innovations potentially boost customer relationships and efficiency, supporting the narrative that CrowdStrike is positioned for future market expansion. Analysts suggest that these advancements might contribute to revenue growth and improved profit margins as CrowdStrike strengthens cloud partnerships and invests in replacing legacy systems with new offerings. Over the past five years, CrowdStrike's total return, inclusive of share price and dividends, was very large at 478.62%. In comparison, the company has outperformed the US Software industry, which returned 7.6% over the past year. This demonstrates a significant long-term commitment of value to shareholders and indicates positive market perception of CrowdStrike's business strategy and execution. The recent positive share price movement, reflecting a 19% increase last month, shows investors' favorable response to CrowdStrike's announcements. Despite this surge, the current share price of US$368.45 suggests a 9.9% discount to the analyst consensus price target of US$408.89. With analysts forecasting revenues to reach $7.4 billion by April 2028 and earnings to improve significantly, companies like CrowdStrike emphasize the potential of technology-led efficiencies and partnerships to increase revenue streams. However, investors should remain mindful of risks around the execution of new products, unpredictable market conditions, and competition that may impact these forecasts. Gain insights into CrowdStrike Holdings' outlook and expected performance with our report on the company's earnings estimates. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include NasdaqGS:CRWD. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@ Sign in to access your portfolio
