CrowdStrike and Okta Soar as AI Could Create “About 90” New Identities Per Worker

CrowdStrike and Okta experienced significant stock gains after reporting strong second-quarter earnings, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) adoption. Both companies' shares surged over 100% in 2026. CrowdStrike's CEO, George Kurtz, described AI as an "arms race," noting that the growing number of AI agents requires securing 90 new identities per employee.

Okta CEO Todd McKinnon emphasized that securing AI agents is crucial, as all deployed agents need identities and governance. Q2 results for CrowdStrike and Okta surpassed expectations, with CrowdStrike's net new annual recurring revenue (ARR) hitting $333 million, a 51% year-over-year growth, and total revenue reaching $1.47 billion, up 26%.

Okta's revenue grew to $5.84 billion, a 25% increase. Despite this success, CrowdStrike was not included in the analyst's top 10 AI stocks list, which was named in 2010.