Zscaler Innovation & Technology Culture

At Zscaler, our "AI Forward, People First" philosophy is about what AI can unlock in our people. We believe an "AI Innovator" isn't just someone with AI in their title; it's anyone who embraces AI curiosity to transform how they work. We're building a culture to empower our teams to see AI not just as a tool, but as a professional partner. 
 

Zscaler’s People Services team wrapped up their first-ever AI Hackathon, bringing together teams in India, EMEA, Asia, and the Americas to pause their daily work and answer one radical question: How can we use AI to disrupt our own work?

The result? Fifteen teams built working prototypes. From AI Parental Leave Planners to Compliance Auditors built by people with zero prior coding experience.

"I went from 'I have no idea what I'm doing' to 'Look at this masterpiece we created' in record time! It didn’t just make me proud, it made me feel genuinely unstoppable. I’m a builder now."

At Zscaler, we aren't just deploying AI tools to our teams. We’re trusting our teams to embrace AI to build the tools they need. 
 

Can you share an example of how you’re using AI in your day-to-day work and what problem it helps you solve?

In global business systems support, delivering enterprise-grade solutions hinges on cohesively sequenced and complex product roadmaps and the prescriptive product requirement documents behind them. To accelerate the PRD cycle, I built the “PRD Professor” Agent. It is derived from internal data sources such as Confluence, Google Drive and brand-guidelines. 

Rather than requiring me to manually draft documentation in a silo, this represents a true “Human + AI” collaboration. The AI agent serves as a co-pilot for co-creation. It handles the heavy lifting of data synthesis and rapid scenario simulation, while I provide the uniquely human elements: strategic intuition, stakeholder empathy and contextual judgment.

By compressing the friction between design and execution, I can bring multiple iterated- solutions to the table in a fraction of the time, reducing business cost, while driving faster value delivery for my customers.

How has your company supported you in experimenting with AI or building new AI-powered solutions?

Zscaler actively fosters an environment of co-elevations by providing business users like me with top-tier models and tools, allowing us to not only experiment with AI but also deploy safe, secure solutions that drive initiatives to real-time business objectives. Learning opportunities are ever present. We have vibrant communities across Slack and other platforms to connect with builders from all domains, cultivating a diverse and collaborative ecosystem. Additionally there have been several opportunities to participate in larger scale workshops, which are broadcast company-wide. This is a true reflection of being committed to each other. We actively build strong, collaborative relationships that ensure everyone is supported and empowered to succeed.

How has working with AI changed the way you think about your own career or future growth?

Working with AI has fundamentally enhanced my ownership and accountability, specifically by reducing the friction of the initial launch phases of new initiatives. Like many professionals, entering a new or highly specialized domain can trigger a sense of imposter syndrome or self-doubt due to a lack of exposure or expertise. While AI doesn’t completely eliminate these challenges, it significantly mitigates the intimidation factor associated with them.

AI acts as an objective sounding board, enabling me to identify errors much earlier and getting me to a high-quality MVP faster. These early experiments save substantial time and effort, ultimately resulting in higher-quality outcomes from the outset. Ultimately, using AI accelerates our “ways of working” by allowing me to execute with urgency, build trust through real impact and maintain a constant focus on the mission.

"AI is a major focus [for the team] right now. Both with enablement for our sales teams so they can guide customers confidently through the intersection of AI and security, as well as partnerships for large security transformations. AI is reshaping how companies work, share knowledge, make decisions, and use information. It democratizes access to capabilities across many different roles, and we play a vital role in helping organizations get there faster and more securely."

The latest ZDX innovations empower teams to move from reactive problem-solving to proactive digital experience management. Here’s what’s new: 

• Device Health Insights: The new Device Health Score and system event insights help IT teams identify and resolve device issues, minimizing downtime and optimizing device performance.
• Network Intelligence: AI-powered root cause analysis drastically reduces troubleshooting time by identifying ISP and last-mile issues in minutes.
• 24/7 Application Monitoring: Zscaler Managed Monitoring enables global monitoring of critical SaaS and web applications, detecting disruptions before they occur and supporting SLA enforcement.

Hear Dhawal Sharma, EVP, Products & Product Strategy, talk about the new innovations. Jump to the New ZDX Innovations chapter (9:00 - 15:00)

Read about what’s new in ZDX in our latest blog 

Aston Martin Aramco will use Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange platform to secure the team's most valuable assets – from car design and race strategy to the real-time data flowing between the track and the UK-based AMR Technology Campus. Zscaler's platform will connect the race team and applications directly and securely, without exposing the network to attackers.

Formula One represents one of the most technologically advanced and data-intensive environments in global sport, where vast volumes of data and critical operational systems underpin performance both on and off the track. A single race weekend can generate more than a terabyte of telemetry from hundreds of sensors on each car, all of it flowing in real-time to engineers across different time zones.

Both Aston Martin Aramco and Zscaler operate in environments where milliseconds matter, decisions can't wait, and a single point of failure can be catastrophic – whether on track or defending against sophisticated cyber attacks.

Today, Zscaler, which protects more than 45 per cent of the Fortune 500, joins Aston Martin Aramco as Global Cybersecurity Partner supporting the team's long-term ambition to power high-speed innovation and fuel its transformation into a championship-winning team. Zscaler branding will debut on the nose, seatbelts and wing mirrors of the AMR26, whilst also being featured on the driver's overalls at the Austrian Grand Prix.