An AI agent deployed inside a bank or hospital system does not sit still. It queries databases, moves files, and calls other software on its own schedule. To do any of that, it needs credentials, just like an employee does. In February, Palo Alto Networks put the ratio at more than 80 machine accounts for every human one inside a typical enterprise. Most security teams cannot produce a full list of them, so they cannot say who or what has access to their most sensitive systems.
NTT DATA and Palo Alto Networks are offering a fix. The two companies announced on Thursday a multiyear global alliance targeting $1 billion in joint business by the end of 2029, pairing Palo Alto’s security platforms with NTT DATA’s consulting and managed services to help clients assess cyber risk, deploy AI securely, and manage the controls afterward.
Asked directly, NTT DATA said the figure represents the total value of customer contracts and orders the two companies sell together over the period, blending product and subscription revenue with services, integration, and managed services. The company said it does not break out further details. Palo Alto Networks confirmed the definition and declined to provide additional financial specifics, citing the quiet period ahead of its fiscal fourth-quarter results, due September 1.
That is a combined sales target across the two companies’ books rather than new revenue for either one, and neither would say what the joint business is worth today. The release separately describes the alliance as backed by “joint investments,” though neither company would say how much. Palo Alto Networks alone guided to roughly $11.4 billion in revenue for its 2026 fiscal year. Split across three years and two balance sheets, $1 billion tells you what the companies intend to chase, not what either one has won.
WHAT CHANGED SINCE APRIL
The two firms were already working together. NTT DATA was one of five launch partners in Palo Alto’s Frontier AI Alliance in April, alongside Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, and PwC. The group has since grown to more than a dozen firms, including Infosys, Wipro, TCS, and McKinsey.
Palo Alto Networks said the earlier alliance was narrowly focused on securing AI deployments and frontier models, while this agreement spans its full portfolio globally. Chairman and CEO Nikesh Arora said the expanded alliance lets the company “operationalize platformization at true global scale,” industry shorthand for pushing customers off a patchwork of security tools and onto one vendor’s stack.
NTT DATA described it as a step further, saying the Frontier AI Alliance created the ecosystem while this agreement creates a dedicated go-to-market and delivery model between the two companies. Being one of thirteen partners is not the same as having a joint engineering roadmap, early access to unreleased platform features, and a shared revenue target.
THE IDENTITY PLAY
The identity security work in the new joint business agreement runs on technology Palo Alto Networks acquired when it closed its $25 billion purchase of CyberArk in February and rebranded it in May as Idira. Palo Alto Networks said NTT DATA was a top-tier CyberArk partner before the acquisition and is already selling Idira at scale.
That makes this as much a distribution decision as a partnership announcement. Palo Alto spent $25 billion to make identity a core pillar of its platform, and it needs large systems integrators to carry that product into regulated industries. NTT DATA, with more than 7,500 cybersecurity staff and 70 delivery centers, is one of the few firms positioned to do it.
Notably, nothing here is exclusive. NTT DATA’s managed security services also run on CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform under a partnership expanded in March 2025, and the company said technology choices remain client-led. Enterprises should expect their integrator to keep selling more than one security platform.
THE PEOPLE QUESTION
The first of the six solution areas in the new alliance is an autonomous security operations center (SOC), which raises an obvious question about what happens to the analysts. Asked whether that means fewer of them, NTT DATA said the idea of a SOC running without security professionals is a misconception. Automation handles alert triage and repetitive investigation, the company said, freeing analysts for threat hunting, incident command, and recovery work. It described the shift as workforce transformation rather than workforce reduction.
Whether that holds is the thing to watch over the three years the alliance runs. NTT DATA’s own research, covering more than 2,300 business and IT decision-makers, found that fewer than half feel highly prepared to manage cloud and AI security risk, even where formal risk plans are in place. That unprepared majority is the demand both companies are counting on.
It also explains why alliances like this keep appearing. Abhijit Dubey, NTT DATA’s CEO and chief AI officer, said organizations now need an approach to cyber resilience that combines “AI-driven security, deep industry expertise, and global scale.” Enterprises buying AI security are not simply buying a product. They need someone to assess the risk, install the technology, and then run it for them month after month.
Palo Alto Networks builds the software but does not employ enough consultants to do that inside thousands of large companies. NTT DATA employs the consultants but does not build security platforms like Palo Alto Networks does. Neither can do the whole job alone, and $1 billion over three years is their estimate of what doing it together is worth.