Palo Alto Networks has announced its intention to acquire Embrace, a company specializing in Real User Monitoring (RUM), to expand its observability platform. Alongside this deal, the company has also introduced Synthetics, a new capability to simulate application usage and detect performance issues before they impact customers or employees.
The key points of the Embrace acquisition in 20 seconds
- Palo Alto Networks will acquire Embrace to incorporate real user monitoring (RUM).
- It also introduces Synthetics for automatically testing applications from various locations worldwide.
- Both technologies will be integrated into Palo Alto Networks Observability.
- The goal is to unify infrastructure, applications, and user experience on a single platform.
- The transaction is pending the usual approvals and is expected to close during the first fiscal quarter of 2027.
Observability has become one of the fastest-growing areas in enterprise software. It’s no longer enough to know whether a server is operational or how much a database consumes. Companies also need to understand if an application responds correctly, how long it takes to load a screen, or if a user is experiencing errors even when the infrastructure seems to be functioning normally.
This is precisely the challenge Palo Alto Networks aims to address with this acquisition. The company, primarily known for its cybersecurity solutions, continues to expand its observability platform following the acquisition of Chronosphere earlier in 2026, now adding capabilities focused directly on measuring users’ digital experience.
Viewing the application from the user’s perspective
A central piece of the announcement is the incorporation of Real User Monitoring (RUM) technology developed by Embrace.
Unlike other tools that only monitor servers or applications, RUM collects information about what actually happens on the user’s device while using a digital service.
It can measure load times, application freezes, unexpected closures, latency, resource consumption, or problems that only appear under certain network conditions, device models, or operating system versions.
This approach is especially useful in mobile applications and distributed platforms, where two users may experience completely different behaviors even when accessing the same service.
The data obtained allows relating a problem observed by a customer to what is happening simultaneously in the infrastructure, microservices, or databases supporting the application.
Palo Alto Networks intends to integrate this data into its Observability platform so that operations teams do not have to consult separate tools to reconstruct an incident.
Synthetics aims to detect issues before the customer does
The second innovation announced is Synthetics, a different but complementary technology.
While RUM analyzes the experience of real users, synthetic testing automatically performs scheduled actions to verify that an application continues to function correctly.
For example, a platform can simulate the complete login process, perform a search, add a product to the cart, or complete a purchase every few minutes.
If any of these operations fail, the system generates an alert even before a customer attempts the same action.
Palo Alto Networks states that these tests can be run from different locations worldwide using the infrastructure developed by its Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) team.
This enables the detection of issues that only appear from certain countries, Internet providers, or cloud regions.
In many cases, an application works correctly from its data center but shows high response times for users located thousands of kilometers away or connected through different networks.
From traditional observability to digital experience
With the addition of Embrace and Synthetics, Palo Alto Networks aims to broaden its observability platform’s reach.
Until now, these solutions mainly focused on collecting infrastructure metrics, logs, and application traces to help pinpoint technical bottlenecks.
The company now plans to add a new layer: the user-perceived experience.
The idea is to answer questions that traditional indicators do not always clarify.
A server might show normal CPU usage, and a database could respond within expected times, yet a mobile client update causes freezes on specific phones.
Connecting these two worlds allows reducing the time needed to identify the root cause of the problem.
Instead of investigating infrastructure issues and user-reported incidents separately, teams can analyze all information from a single platform.
AI will also participate in automatic resolution
Palo Alto Networks also revealed that these new capabilities will integrate with Cortex AgentiX, its AI agent-based platform.
According to Lee Klarich, the company’s Product and Technology Director, the goal is not only to detect issues but also to automate part of their resolution.
The company envisions a scenario where the platform identifies a performance issue, locates its root cause, and proposes or executes specific corrective actions via AI agents.
However, these functions are part of the company’s strategic roadmap, and the announcement does not specify that all of them are currently available to customers.
Observability as an increasingly strategic market
The Embrace acquisition confirms that observability is becoming a key area for major technology vendors.
Companies like Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, Splunk, Grafana Labs, and Elastic have been expanding their platforms for years to provide a unified view of infrastructure, applications, and digital experience.
Palo Alto Networks started reinforcing this strategy following the acquisition of Chronosphere earlier in 2026, adding advanced observability capabilities for native cloud environments.
According to the company, its platform already surpasses $300 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and has been recognized by Gartner as a leader in observability platforms for three consecutive years.
The Embrace acquisition continues this trajectory and introduces technology focused especially on mobile applications and modern distributed services.
The deal is still subject to regulatory approvals and closing conditions. Palo Alto Networks expects to complete it during the first quarter of its fiscal year 2027, although it has not disclosed the financial terms.
Beyond the acquisition, the announcement reflects an increasingly visible trend in the tech industry: the convergence of observability, operations, artificial intelligence, and automation. Platforms are no longer just about alerting when something fails but providing enough context to identify causes, prioritize incidents, and even initiate corrective actions before users notice the issue.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Embrace?
It is a company specializing in Real User Monitoring (RUM), a technology that analyzes the real experience of users while using mobile apps and other digital services.
What does Synthetics offer?
It enables automated testing of applications from different locations to detect availability or performance issues before they impact users.
What is observability?
It is a set of tools that collect metrics, logs, traces, and other data to understand how applications and IT infrastructure operate.
When will the acquisition be finalized?
Palo Alto Networks expects to complete the deal during the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.
