Check Point Software Technologies Pitches AI-Driven “Predictive” Prevention, SASE Growth at Conference

Check Point Software Technologies (NASDAQ:CHKP) used a Raymond James conference fireside chat to outline how it views the current cybersecurity landscape, its positioning around AI-driven threats, and the company’s priorities for growth, profitability, and capital allocation heading into 2026.

From firewall roots to a consolidated security “stack”

Company executive Kip Meintzer described Check Point as a 32- to 33-year-old company that helped create the “modern-day firewall.” He argued that the cybersecurity market has evolved from “disparate pieces” toward consolidation, with major firewall vendors acting as consolidators for broader security platforms.

Meintzer said Check Point has long emphasized “protection and prevention,” contrasting that with competitors’ approaches he characterized as “detection remediation.” He added that prevention has become more important in what he called an “agentic world,” where threats may not require command-and-control communication outside an environment.

Management changes and go-to-market focus

Meintzer said Check Point has a new CEO as of last year and spent the past year building a foundation, adding new management, flattening the management team, and placing a “big focus on go-to-market.” He also emphasized increased CEO engagement with customers and partners, describing the current leadership as more actively involved in selling than in the past.

AI strategy: four pillars and “predictive” prevention

In the discussion, Meintzer called AI “the biggest game changer for cyber since the modern-day firewall was created,” describing it as beneficial to attackers and defenders alike. He said organizations that fail to implement AI defensively will be at a disadvantage because “the bad guys” are adopting it aggressively.

He attributed Check Point’s current AI strategy to four pillars:

• Hybrid mesh network (connectivity)
• Workspace (user-based technologies including endpoint and SASE)
• CTEM (continuous threat exposure management)
• AI (embedded across the other pillars and also treated as a standalone focus)

Meintzer said the AI stack addresses runtime attacks and includes a GenAI data loss prevention (DLP)-type capability aimed at preventing employees from placing intellectual property into public large language models. He also referenced “agentic protections” connected to a Cyata acquisition.

He highlighted a “red teaming” capability associated with Lakera, including a product called “Gandalf,” which he described as a gamified tool with more than 1 million users. Meintzer said the product helps generate a database of adversarial prompts—attempts to bypass guardrails in an LLM and obtain restricted information—and is used to prevent those outcomes in a “predictive and live way,” according to his remarks.

Guidance framing, subscriptions, and emerging technologies

Meintzer said the company offered additional categories of guidance this year that it “normally” does not, including operational cash flow and subscription revenue, in addition to product and profitability measures. He said Check Point typically provides a “pretty wide band” for guidance and stated an objective of moving toward a “beating and raising” pattern over time.

On performance, he said Check Point finished last year with 6% revenue growth and 9% billings growth. He added that the midpoint of guidance for the current year was “right around 6%,” as stated in the discussion.

Meintzer also described where he sees growth within subscriptions. He said the subscription line includes:

• “Attached” subscriptions bundled with firewall sales (virtual or physical), representing roughly ~70% of subscription revenue in his round figures
• “Emerging technologies” representing roughly 30%+, including offerings such as SASE, CTEM, and Workspace components like email security

He said major emerging technology areas like SASE are growing at over 40% and are expected to become a larger portion of subscription revenue over time if growth continues at a faster rate than the attached category.

SASE positioning, Perimeter 81 progress, pricing, and margins

Addressing investor concerns about SASE potentially cannibalizing firewall demand, Meintzer framed SASE as complementary to the firewall, providing consistent security for users working from branch offices, home, airports, and other locations. He acknowledged that SASE could replace a firewall in certain smaller branch-office scenarios, but said a “core” data center or busy branch location would not be replaced with a SASE-only approach, in his view.

On Perimeter 81, Meintzer said Check Point bought the company for its architecture, which he said helped address a key SASE challenge: latency and user experience. However, he said the acquired product was not originally directed at the enterprise, requiring retooling over the last two years. He said it is now scaling to “tens of thousands,” with customers “very happy,” and that additional enterprise features continue to be added.

On hardware-related inflation, Meintzer said Check Point implemented a 5% price increase across products effective January 1 and does not currently see a need for additional increases. He said the company expected to be “fine” on memory costs in the first half due to inventory, while the second half could create an estimated ~1% gross margin headwind before any further pricing actions.

In the margins discussion, Meintzer said a meaningful portion of margin headwind was tied to currency, citing that about 50% of expenses are in non-U.S. dollar currencies, and that a weaker dollar created a headwind of about 1–2 points by his estimate. He also said acquisitions at the end of last year created an additional headwind of close to 1%. He referenced policy items in the U.S. and Israel related to R&D credits that provided flexibility the company was not anticipating.

He said the company’s guidance implied a margin level around 39.40% for the year, and reiterated management’s willingness to trade margin for growth—though not on a one-to-one basis, stating the goal is multiple points of growth for each point of margin.

Finally, Meintzer discussed capital allocation and M&A. He said the company issued a $2 billion convertible note at 0 in December for general corporate use and potential acquisitions, and he corrected himself during the conversation to say it adds about $70 million per year in interest income. He said Check Point conducts about $1.3 billion per year in buybacks, reducing share count by roughly 3% to 5%, and noted the company may eventually need to keep shares flat due to dilution constraints tied to proxy advisory considerations. He said that could free capacity for alternatives such as increasing cash for acquisitions or potentially initiating a dividend.

Closing the session, Meintzer told investors he believes Check Point is “not the sleepy company people thought it was,” arguing the company is positioned for future growth with what he described as a “predictive and protective” platform.

About Check Point Software Technologies (NASDAQ:CHKP)

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. is an Israeli-founded cybersecurity company that develops, markets and supports a broad portfolio of network, cloud and endpoint security products. Founded in 1993, the company was an early pioneer of stateful inspection firewall technology and later developed a modular “software blade” approach that allowed customers to combine protection capabilities. Check Point’s product set spans physical and virtual security appliances, software and cloud-native services designed to prevent cyberattacks, protect data and simplify security management for enterprises and service providers.

Key product families include Quantum Security Gateways (on-premises and hybrid appliances), CloudGuard (cloud security posture and workload protection), Harmony (endpoint, remote access and unified endpoint security), and SandBlast (advanced threat prevention and sandboxing).