Zscaler Has ‘Incredible Advantage’ For Securing AI Agent Boom: Partners

The cybersecurity vendor’s combination of a broad customer base and zero trust system that can be naturally extended into agentic mean massive growth opportunities ahead for Zscaler partners, solution and service provider executives tell CRN.

Zscaler’s large customer base, massive data telemetry and global system for securing communications between AI agents give the vendor a substantial edge when it comes to securing agentic adoption, executives at top Zscaler partners told CRN.

During interviews at Zscaler’s Zenith Live 2026 conference this week, solution and service provider executives said this combination puts the channel-friendly cybersecurity vendor in a pivotal position, with organizations racing to securely deploy AI agents.

“I think they’re incredibly well-positioned, and we’re seeing it in the market,” said Tristan Tarpinian, vice president for national alliances at Herndon, Va.-based GuidePoint Security, No. 32 on CRN’s 2026 Solution Provider 500.

Zscaler’s AI security message has resonated strongly with partners and customers alike, particularly as businesses shift from experimentation with AI agents toward addressing critical questions around security and governance, partner executives said.

Zscaler has a “significant lead” in the segment with its zero trust security platform, which is best equipped for protecting the communications needed to make agentic work, Zscaler founder and CEO Jay Chaudhry told CRN during the conference in Las Vegas.

When it comes to enabling secure deployment of AI agents, the biggest need right now is to protect the communications between agents, Chaudhry said. And in that regard, “we think zero trust is the foundation on which agentic communication can be built,” he said. “I think this will be massive.”

‘Same Fundamental Architecture’

Zscaler estimates that it already had 70 percent of the functionality necessary to expand its Zero Trust Exchange into the sphere of AI agent communications, Chaudhry said.

But while Zero Trust Exchange was designed for users and not for AI, “we think the same fundamental architecture and approach can be applied to agentic AI,” said Matt De Vincentis, senior vice president for product marketing at Zscaler. “That means for customers, they don't have to deploy a whole new stack and new vendor ecosystem. It's just an extension of what they already know.”

Indeed, for Zscaler partners, the growth opportunities around securing agentic are bolstered by the fact that the company is already so deeply embedded within many customer environments, executives said.

Whereas many vendors are still in the process of trying to gain credibility around AI security, Zscaler can build off of its large global deployments of technologies for securing communications between users, applications and workloads, according to Zscaler partners.

Without a doubt, the relative novelty of AI agents means that existing customers are likely to be the “best targets for growth” when it comes to providing security around agentic, said Meg Smith, vice president for strategic security partnerships at Chicago-based AHEAD, No. 24 on CRN’s 2026 Solution Provider 500.

“I think Zscaler and their trusted relationships—and the rate at which they’ve been innovating over the past two years—is an incredible advantage that they have in the ecosystem,” Smith said.

‘Staying Power In The Market’

Customers know they have to move fast in terms of deploying security in order to fully leverage AI agents and working with their trusted solution and service provider advisors as well as established vendors is going to be essential, Zscaler partner executives said.

Around the industry, “all of these AI companies have a marketing tactic or their story. But it’s about [having] real, applicable use cases within an organization,” GuidePoint’s Tarpinian said.

And Zscaler is one of the few that can credibly say they have that, when it comes to having a system for securing agentic, she said.

“I feel like they’re a leader from that perspective,” Tarpinian said. “It gives you confidence that they’ve really built something with staying power in the market. And they’re relentless about it.”

Based on Zscaler’s position in the market, it was a natural move for the company to expand into securing AI and agentic, said Josh Kirby, vice president for partner strategy and development at Denver-based Optiv Security, No. 29 on CRN’s 2026 Solution Provider 500.

Zscaler’s data telemetry is clearly a huge differentiator that stems from its central position in the market, with the company enabling 750 billion transactions per day across its global systems, Kirby noted.

“The amount of telemetry and the amount of data that they have access to, all of that plays a huge role in how you secure [agentic],” he said.

‘Lead With Trust’

Still, Zscaler’s opportunity around AI will depend not only on the strength of the platform, but also on whether customers have the expertise needed to properly deploy and manage it, according to David Gottesman, president and CEO of San Francisco-based EpicCyber.

And given that the rapid emergence of AI has created such a scramble across the business world, this need for working with specialized service providers becomes even more acute, Gottesman said.

“Everyone's playing catch-up. This is a stampede,” he said. “We're trying to figure out how to wrap our arms around it, but Zscaler is a great platform for that—because everything goes through it when it's set up properly.”

Ultimately, for Zscaler and its partners, that means the AI agent security opportunity will be driven not just by technology—but by whether customers have the right advisors and platforms in place, AHEAD’s Smith said.

When it comes to AI, she said, “I hands-down think that the most important thing that we do—as technology enthusiasts, technology resellers, technology system integrators—is that we lead with trust.”