CrowdStrike reports higher operating expenses as AI investments gain pace

June 3 (Reuters) – CrowdStrike reported a 15% jump in its first-quarter operating expenses on Wednesday, as the cybersecurity company ramps up investments in AI and product development.

Shares of the company dropped 9% in extended trading.

Here are some details:

• CrowdStrike expects 2027 revenue to be between $5.91 billion and $5.96 billion, compared with its prior expectations of $5.87 billion to $5.93 billion.

• Total operating expenses for the first quarter came in at $1.07 billion, compared with $934.3 million a year earlier.

• The company’s platform approach, spanning endpoint protection, cloud security and identity, is designed to make customers more reliant on its ecosystem, driving both stickiness and cross-selling opportunities.

• In March, CrowdStrike launched Falcon Data Security, a unified platform designed to discover, classify and protect sensitive data and AI workflows in real time.

• It also launched the Charlotte AI AgentWorks Ecosystem, a no-code development platform created with AWS, Nvidia, and OpenAI to build and scale custom security agents on the Falcon platform.

• CrowdStrike also announced a four-for-one stock split.

• Total first-quarter revenue stood at $1.39 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $1.36 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Shilpi Majumdar)