Fastly (NASDAQ:FSLY) executives outlined the company’s efforts to broaden its security portfolio, improve go-to-market execution and capitalize on demand related to artificial intelligence at KeyBanc Capital Markets’ Technology Leadership Forum.
Rich Wong, Fastly’s chief financial officer, said the company operates as an Edge Cloud provider, offering content delivery, security, compute and observability services designed to make internet applications faster, more reliable and safer. He said Fastly’s strategy is centered on pairing its edge capabilities with customers’ central-cloud environments.
Security portfolio and sales execution
Wong said Fastly previously had a single security offering, its web application firewall, or WAF, which originated with the company’s 2020 acquisition of Signal Sciences. After integrating that technology into Fastly’s network, the company expanded its security lineup to include distributed denial-of-service protection, bot management, API security and client-side protection.
“Having that full suite enabled us to really be a true security player versus just a single security product,” Wong said.
He said the broader portfolio has changed customer discussions from conversations centered solely on content delivery networks to conversations involving the full set of delivery and security products. According to Wong, security products such as DDoS protection, WAF and bot management can also be necessary for Fastly to participate in certain content-delivery requests for proposals.
Lovett, who joined in mid-2024, elevated Fastly’s go-to-market organization by bringing in sales personnel with security experience and changing compensation plans, Wong said. He added that sales and marketing expense at the end of 2025 was lower than it had been during 2024, while the company generated an additional $80 million to $90 million of year-over-year revenue.
Fastly reported 23.3% year-over-year revenue growth in its latest quarter, Wong said, marking its third consecutive quarter with growth above 20%. He also cited 65.8% gross margin, $27 million in operating profit, four consecutive quarters of operating profit and six consecutive quarters of free-cash-flow generation.
Customer concentration and retention
Vern Essi, Fastly’s vice president of investor relations, said investors have responded positively to the company’s increased revenue diversification, security momentum and top-line growth. He said some investors have also raised concerns about customer concentration, with Fastly’s top 10 customers accounting for approximately 26% of revenue.
Essi said the company remains comfortable with its ability to grow its largest-customer cohort while continuing to expand other parts of the business. He also highlighted a trailing-12-month net retention rate of 117%, which he described as a four-year high for the company.
Fastly’s “other” revenue category, which includes compute, grew 70% year over year, Essi said. That category generated roughly $8 million in revenue during the latest quarter, according to Wong.
AI opportunities centered on security and edge compute
Executives said AI is creating opportunities across Fastly’s business, although they characterized some areas as early-stage. Essi said the most immediate AI-related growth vector has been bot management, including the company’s ContentGuard product.
Fastly has publicly discussed a win with French media organization Le Monde, which uses ContentGuard to identify and manage automated agents accessing its network, Essi said. The product can help customers determine whether to reject agents or permit access, including in cases where a customer has an existing relationship with the organization behind the agent.
Wong said AI traffic can generate high numbers of requests, though it often involves lower amounts of delivered data. Customers have not pushed back significantly on the associated delivery traffic, he said, because they view AI visibility as potentially beneficial to brand exposure and customer discovery.
“AI is now the new SEO,” Wong said, referring to search-engine optimization.
Fastly is also discussing agentic compute workloads with customers, but Essi said it remains too early to determine the scale of that opportunity. The company does not plan to build a GPU-focused “neocloud,” he said, arguing that Fastly’s edge positioning and open cloud platform provide a more attractive approach without requiring large capital investments in graphics-processing-unit infrastructure.
Capital efficiency and greater revenue visibility
Wong said Fastly’s single network supports both delivery and security products, including the acquired Signal Sciences WAF. He said that architecture contributes to capital efficiency compared with competitors that may operate separate networks for different product categories.
The company changed its server depreciation cycle from five years to six years earlier this year, citing longer equipment life. Wong said Fastly’s infrastructure capital-expenditure guidance is 10% to 12% of revenue, with spending in 2026 weighted toward the first half after the company ordered components early amid supply-shortage concerns. He said much of the infrastructure spending is directed toward new points of presence in regions including Latin America and Southeast Asia.
While Fastly remains a consumption-based business, Wong said the company has increased revenue visibility through larger customer commitments. He cited year-over-year growth of 38% in remaining performance obligations and 44% in current remaining performance obligations.
About Fastly (NASDAQ:FSLY)
Fastly, Inc operates an edge cloud platform designed to accelerate, secure and enable modern digital experiences. The company offers a suite of services including a content delivery network (CDN), edge compute, load balancing, web application firewall (WAF) and DDoS protection. Fastly’s real-time architecture allows customers to seamlessly deploy software logic at the network edge, reducing latency by bringing applications and content closer to end users.
Founded in 2011 by Artur Bergman, Fastly has evolved from a pure-play CDN provider into a comprehensive edge cloud platform.
