Zscaler Acquires Symmetry Systems for AI Agent Security as Enterprise Adoption Surges

Quick Facts

• Zscaler announced plans to acquire Symmetry Systems for undisclosed terms, with the deal expected to close in the coming days
• Symmetry Systems’ access graph technology maps how AI agents, applications and data connect across enterprises
• The acquisition addresses growing security challenges as 80.9% of teams have moved past AI planning into active testing or production

Zscaler announced its intent to acquire Symmetry Systems, a pioneer in identity mapping and data access for AI security, as enterprises struggle to govern rapidly deployed AI agents at scale.

The cybersecurity company did not disclose financial terms for the deal, which is expected to close in the coming days. Zscaler shares fell 1.19% to $172.37 in pre-market trading following the announcement.

Symmetry Systems has built an access graph that maps how human and non-human identities, applications and data connect across enterprises. The technology ingests access logs from SaaS applications, cloud services, data stores and AI systems, using AI to correlate them into a visual map showing which identities access which data.

‘As enterprises rapidly adopt AI, the old playbook for governing access built around users and directories cannot scale to millions of AI agents,’ said Jay Chaudhry, Chairman and CEO of Zscaler. ‘With Symmetry Systems, we are adding the access graph that maps how every identity, application, and data source connects across the enterprise.’

The acquisition comes as enterprises face a structural AI security crisis. While 80.9% of technical teams have moved past planning into active testing or production, only 14.4% report all AI agents going live with full security approval. Additionally, 88% of organizations confirmed or suspected AI security incidents this year.

AI agents present unique security challenges because they can move across systems, use inherited permissions and act on behalf of people or other tools. This makes it difficult for security teams to track what agents accessed and whether that activity created risk.

Founded in 2019 by Casen Hunger and Dr. Mohit Tiwari at the University of Texas at Austin’s Spark Research Lab, Symmetry Systems has raised $33 million across two funding rounds. The company’s recent research uncovered ConfusedPilot, a novel attack vector against RAG-based AI systems.

The AI agent market has grown rapidly, expanding from $7.84 billion in 2025 to a projected $52.62 billion by 2030. Gartner reports that 80% of enterprise applications shipped or updated in Q1 2026 embed at least one AI agent, up from 33% in 2024.

Zscaler plans to integrate Symmetry’s technology into its Zero Trust Exchange platform to govern agent-to-application and agent-to-agent communication at enterprise scale.

Read more: Zscaler acquires Symmetry Systems to extend its AI agent security capabilities