The surging demand for cybersecurity driven by AI and agentic adoption is only leading to increased reliance on partners at Zscaler, Channel Chief Anthony Torsiello tells CRN. ‘Partners are the elixir,’ he says.
Zscaler is putting partners at the center of its massive push around AI security and enablement, including with an increasing reliance on the channel for driving new growth and delivering services around the cybersecurity giant’s expanding platform, according to Channel Chief Anthony Torsiello.
In an interview with CRN, Torsiello (pictured) and other Zscaler channel executives said that surging customer demand for cybersecurity driven by widespread AI and agentic adoption is only creating a bigger role for partners.
[Related: Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry: Boldest Statements From Zenith Live 2026]
“The trajectory is strong in terms of growth. And partners are the elixir,” said Torsiello, senior vice president for global partner ecosystem at Zscaler. “If they understand the technology and they have the relationships with the customers, that’s how we’re going to grow.”
Torsiello and other Zscaler channel executives spoke with CRN during the company’s Zenith Live 2026 conference in Las Vegas, where the security vendor unveiled its newest AI security capabilities while touting the proficiency of its overall zero -rust security platform for addressing AI-accelerated cyber risk.
Crucially, “our partners have been a very important part of this journey,” Zscaler founder and CEO Jay Chaudhry said Tuesday during his keynote at the conference.
Partner Perspective
Without a doubt, Zscaler is making the right moves to enable deeper engagement with solution and service providers in a fast-changing environment, executives at top Zscaler partners told CRN.
“They’ve always been very partner-friendly,” said Lucas Marquardt, vice president of sales at Houston-based Alchemy Technology Group. “Now they’re partner-forward.”
This is crucial because Zscaler has an immensely powerful set of technologies that requires proper configuration to use effectively, according to David Gottesman, president and CEO of San Francisco-based EpicCyber, a major Zscaler service provider partner.
That creates a huge role for partners with specialized expertise to enable operation of Zscaler’s platform and keep it running smoothly as the platform continually expands, Gottesman said.
All in all, “we’re solving for the proficiency problem,” he said.
Services Push
Zscaler’s partner efforts include a key focus around expanding the services opportunity for partners across its broader platform, executives said.
While partners may not have initially seen outsized services opportunities around Zscaler’s early core products, that has changed as the platform has expanded—especially when it comes to areas such as branch and data security, according to Torsiello.
Zscaler has also made the decision not to deliver any services in its commercial segment—customers with 5,000 users or below—and is instead opting to rely entirely on partners for those services, he said during Zscaler’s partner summit event Monday in Las Vegas.
“We want our partners to deliver in that segment holistically,” Torsiello said, adding that “partner-led services” will continue to be a key driver for Zscaler going forward.
When it comes to AI security specifically, Zscaler’s zero-trust architecture creates a unique foundation for partner-delivered services, according to Melissa Nacerino, vice president for global partner marketing at Zscaler.
Bringing so many capabilities together under Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange directly addresses “what our customers are asking of us—which is, ‘How do I safely enable AI and agentic AI, and leverage it?’” Nacerino said. “That’s a huge opportunity for our partners to build services and to develop practices.”
The bottom line is that partners have an essential role in helping customers use Zscaler to modernize networks in the AI era, according to Nitin Gulati, vice president for global systems integrator sales.
Zscaler depends upon deep partner engagements “to get the full breadth of transformation for our customers,” Gulati said.
Focus On Partners
Meanwhile, Zscaler’s Project AI-Guardian initiative is another major example of how the company is seeking to bring partners into the AI security opportunity, executives said.
The initiative, focused on global systems integrators and technology alliances for now, aims to help bring frontier AI capabilities to the market for security assessments, according to Zscaler. The goal over time is to expand the initiative to a broader set of partners as well, executives said.
At the same time, even with so much attention around new AI models and related technologies, the company is keeping the channel at the forefront of its approach to reaching customers, according to Zscaler channel executives.
Ultimately, “this is a moment for us that’s not just about the tech—but also about the partners that can help us bring it to market,” Torsiello said.
