Palo Alto Networks has entered into an agreement to acquire Embrace, an observability start-up specialising in Real User Monitoring (RUM), as the cybersecurity giant extends its platform into full digital experience monitoring.
Announced on 23 July 2026, the acquisition will fold Embrace’s user-focused observability technology into the Palo Alto Networks Observability platform. Alongside the deal, the company is also rolling out Synthetics, a new capability built by its Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) team that proactively tests application performance from locations around the world.
Closing the gap between backend and user experience
The combined capabilities are designed to give organisations a single view spanning end-user interactions, proactive application validation, and backend software and infrastructure. Palo Alto Networks said legacy monitoring tools are often fragmented and costly, and can miss the moment a user’s experience actually breaks — a gap Embrace’s RUM technology and the new Synthetics tool are meant to close.
With the new tools, organisations will be able to eliminate blind spots by monitoring user experience and infrastructure health from a single interface, catch performance issues before they cause revenue-impacting downtime, and identify problems before they reach customers or employees.
‘To truly understand how their applications are performing, organisations need to see the whole picture — from the moment a user taps or clicks to what exactly happens on the backend,’ said Lee Klarich, Chief Product and Technology Officer of Palo Alto Networks. ‘By combining Palo Alto Networks’ leading Observability platform with Embrace’s innovative Real User Monitoring and the organically developed Synthetic Monitoring capabilities, we’ll deliver exactly that.’
Latest in a string of observability deals
The Embrace deal follows Palo Alto Networks’ acquisition of Chronosphere in January 2026, part of a broader push into observability that has seen the segment surpass US$300 million in annualised recurring revenue in the company’s third quarter of fiscal 2026. Palo Alto Networks was also named a leader for the third consecutive year in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Observability Platforms, and topped the Observability Cost Control category in Gartner’s 2026 Critical Capabilities report.
Klarich also pointed to a longer-term ambition: linking the new monitoring capabilities with Cortex AgentiX so that organisations can not only see issues across their ecosystem, but have them fixed automatically.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in Palo Alto Networks’ first quarter of fiscal 2027.
