Palo Alto Networks Buys Console AI for Security Automation

Palo Alto Networks has acquired Console, an AI-native platform, to enhance its security operations. Console allows organizations to create agentic workflows using natural language. This move aims to deepen agentic capabilities within Cortex, Palo Alto Networks' security operations platform. Console's technology lets users define an operational goal, and the software then handles the complex steps to achieve it. In security, this means resolving alerts and issues at machine speed, reducing the manual effort of investigating signals and prioritizing tasks. Palo Alto Networks believes AI is changing the threat landscape, requiring security teams to operate faster and with more context. This acquisition marks a shift to what CEO Nikesh Arora calls "software-as-an-agent." The goal is to deliver autonomous security outcomes across the entire enterprise, moving beyond just managing dashboards to automatic remediation. Console's co-founder, Andrei Serban, noted that joining Palo Alto Networks provides the expertise and scale needed to reach large enterprises. This deal extends a broader trend among security vendors to integrate autonomous AI agents into their platforms. For customers, this means a potential shift towards software not just flagging threats, but actively responding to them.