Palo Alto Networks plans to expand its observability platform through the acquisition of Embrace, adding real user monitoring capabilities while introducing a new synthetic monitoring service designed to help organizations detect application issues before they affect customers or employees.
The announcement strengthens Palo Alto Networks’ push beyond cybersecurity by expanding its observability offerings with unified visibility across applications, infrastructure and end-user experiences.
Observability Platform Gains User Experience Visibility
The planned acquisition brings Embrace’s Real User Monitoring (RUM) technology into the Palo Alto Networks Observability platform, allowing IT teams to monitor how users actually experience applications across mobile and web environments.
The company is also launching Synthetics, a new capability developed by its Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) team. The feature proactively tests application performance from distributed locations around the world, helping organizations identify outages and performance issues before users encounter them.
Together, the two capabilities provide visibility from frontend user interactions through backend applications and infrastructure within a single platform.
Eliminating Blind Spots Across Enterprise Applications
Modern enterprise applications have become increasingly distributed as organizations adopt cloud services, AI-powered applications and microservices architectures. Palo Alto Networks says many existing monitoring platforms remain fragmented, requiring multiple tools to understand application performance.
By combining infrastructure monitoring, application observability, Real User Monitoring and synthetic testing, organizations can:
- Monitor user experience and infrastructure health from a single platform.
- Identify performance bottlenecks more quickly using unified analytics.
- Detect issues before they disrupt employees or customers.
- Reduce downtime that could impact revenue and business operations.
The company said the integrated platform is designed to simplify operations while providing a more complete view of enterprise application performance.
Building on Recent Observability Growth
The announcement follows Palo Alto Networks’ acquisition of Chronosphere earlier this year, continuing the company’s expansion into observability and application performance management.
Palo Alto Networks said its Observability business surpassed $300 million in annual recurring revenue during the third quarter of fiscal 2026. The company also noted it has been recognized as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms for the third consecutive year and received the highest ranking for Observability Cost Control in the 2026 Gartner Critical Capabilities report.
AI Plays a Growing Role in IT Operations
Palo Alto Networks also plans to integrate the expanded observability capabilities with Cortex AgentiX, its AI-driven operations platform.
The integration is intended to move beyond identifying performance problems by enabling automated remediation across enterprise environments. Instead of simply alerting IT teams to issues, the platform aims to help resolve problems automatically using AI-powered workflows.
Company executives said combining observability data with autonomous operations represents the next step toward platform-based IT management.
The acquisition of Embrace is expected to close during Palo Alto Networks’ first quarter of fiscal 2027, subject to customary closing conditions.
The Bottom Line
Palo Alto Networks is continuing to broaden its enterprise platform beyond cybersecurity by expanding into application observability and digital experience monitoring. By combining Embrace’s Real User Monitoring technology with new synthetic monitoring capabilities and AI-powered automation, the company is positioning its platform to give IT teams a more complete view of application health while helping resolve issues before they affect end users.