cloud strike CEO George Kurtz said concerns about AI-powered cyber threats were a tailwind for the company, but investors who were hoping for an impact in the first quarter were premature.
“We’re talking about Mythos expiring in mid-April. Our quarter ends at the end of April,” Kurtz said Thursday on CNBC’s “Mad Money.” “We sell enterprise software, but we don’t necessarily ship boxes. So it takes time for these products to get into customers’ hands.”
CrowdStrike reported better-than-expected results on Wednesday and raised its full-year outlook. But the stock fell 4% as some investors questioned why the increased attention surrounding Anthropic’s Mythos didn’t translate into a near-term boost.
Kurtz said the company’s latest guidance tells a larger story. CrowdStrike has raised its full-year net new annual recurring revenue guidance by more than $50 million, reflecting increased confidence in customer demand.
“We are confident that we will do so because we think we have an opportunity in front of us,” Kurtz said. “We know what our customers want, and that’s CrowdStrike.”
The CEO said demand for the company’s AI security products is accelerating as companies look for ways to securely deploy artificial intelligence across their organizations. He said the second quarter pipeline for CrowdStrike’s AI detection and response platform has already exceeded $50 million, growing 250% quarter over quarter.
“What we’ve learned from talking to customers is that they want to deploy more AI,” Kurtz said. “If you want more AI, if you want more AI, you need security.”
Kurtz also rejected the idea that advances in AI will reduce the need for cybersecurity vendors. Rather, he argued that AI improves the capabilities of attackers and increases the need for comprehensive cybersecurity platforms.
“What AI has done is that it has created an adversary that can do more sophisticated attacks because it leverages the models themselves,” Kurtz said. “This means further tailwinds for companies like CrowdStrike.”
