Equally on our side, there’s plenty of usage that we can get from generative AI. And we are investing a lot in AI. We just had, I can tell, first, I mean, just to be clear, we are on AI for many, many years. And last year, we’ve introduced 12 new threat cloud engines that are based on AI. By now, our threat cloud, which is the kind of brain of our central system a 70-something threat engines, 42 of them are AI-based. AI is pretty big in what we do. But just for the first quarter, based on this AI revolution, we did the Hackathon, for example, within Check Point, and let different teams here see what they can do with generative AI, and I was very positively surprised with the level of innovation. I’m participating in this Hackathons for years.
Seeing the innovation, it’s the first time that like they presented 10 finalist project. And all the 10 I said, we can use them now. Like good technology. It’s not like, okay, doesn’t belong here, maybe not at the right quality, almost all 10 were something I said, why aren’t we using it now? Some were more internal, but seven or eight out of the 10 were things we can actually incorporate into our products, and I think we will incorporate most of them. So generative AI has the potential to change our market as well.
Brad Zelnick: Thanks, Gil.
Kip Meintzer: All right. Next up is Ray followed by Max Gambrell from Goldman Sachs.
Raymond McDonough: Great. Thanks for taking the question. Gil, maybe for you, how would you characterize the level of discounting you’re seeing industry-wide? And how do you think about pricing concessions in this environment. And along with that, how much of an impact is the increase in financing costs that customers have to bear, having on deal activity at this point? Would you characterize it as material? And has it become more apparent in recent months?
Gil Shwed: I don’t think it changed materially. We are operating in a tough environment, not in tough, but we are in a competitive environment and sometimes customers get high discounts. I don’t know, Roei, did we have an increase in this — on the last quarter. I didn’t see something big, but I think it was relatively consistent. Roei?
Roei Golan: Relatively consistently a bit higher discount because we also raised our prices this quarter. So in the end, we had a bit higher discounts, but pretty consistent with what we’ve seen in the last few quarters.
Gil Shwed: And again, I think the 1 thing I’m very encouraged with is the healthy renewal business that we’ve seen in this past quarter. Customers are renewing, which means that a) they are using the technology. Second, they are — they like it. And that’s actually a very, very good sign. I’m hearing from other colleagues, not necessarily in the cyber industry, but other industries. That for them the renewal business was always a source for growth and expansion, especially SaaS vendors. And suddenly, this business is also under pressure. So far, we haven’t seen, again, it’s tough people ask for discounts, people want that, but it was relatively healthy in the samples that I’ve seen, I can’t even say that I’m seeing a consistent drive for more discounts. Actually, some deals were even lower discounts this year in the fewer type spotted.
Raymond McDonough: Got it. Thank you.
Kip Meintzer: All right. Next up, Max, followed by Saket Kalia of Barclays.
