Analyst(s): Brad Shimmin
Publication Date: February 25, 2026
Pure Storage has officially transitioned to Everpure, signaling an aggressive strategic pivot away from hardware-centric storage and toward a unified Data Intelligence Platform. By pairing this rebrand with the acquisition of 1touch, Everpure is positioning its Enterprise Data Cloud architecture as the cognitive core of the AI era. This move acknowledges a shifting market reality: the value of data no longer resides in a physical footprint, but in its context, governance, and accessibility.
What is Covered in This Article:
- Pure Storage’s comprehensive rebranding to Everpure and the tactical evolution of its Enterprise Data Cloud (EDC) architecture.
- The strategic acquisition of 1touch, designed to bake real-time data discovery, AI-driven classification, and semantic ontologies directly into the infrastructure layer.
- The competitive fallout in the data platform wars, placing immediate pressure on incumbents like NetApp and VAST Data, and expanding the ranks of competitors such as Veeam and Commvault.
- Operational guidance for CIOs navigating the transition from managing passive infrastructure to overseeing active, AI-ready data intelligence.
The News: On February 23, 2026, Pure Storage officially shed its legacy identity to become Everpure. This rebranding serves as the centerpiece of the company’s transition from a hardware vendor to a provider of a fully integrated Enterprise Data Cloud (EDC). In a simultaneous move to bolster its software intelligence, Everpure announced its intent to acquire 1touch, a pioneer in data discovery and Data Security Posture Management (DSPM). The acquisition, expected to close in Q2 FY27, aims to integrate 1touch’s semantic context and automated classification capabilities directly into the Everpure Platform. CEO Charles Giancarlo framed the move as a necessity for the AI-driven enterprise, moving the needle from mere data retention to “actionable intelligence.”
The Storage Era is Dead; Long Live Everpure!
Analyst Take: The funeral for the legacy storage industry has finally arrived, and Everpure is the one delivering the eulogy. Increasingly, storage hardware and software have become associated with diminishing returns, a label for a commodity bucket where data goes to hibernate. By rebranding as Everpure, the company is leaning into this hard truth: profitability has shifted away from raw capacity and toward deep understanding. This isn’t a superficial marketing pivot for the storied vendor. Rather, it represents a calculated attempt to transcend the hardware layer and capture the semantic high ground.
The Name: Why “Everpure”?
While the name might evoke thoughts of premium bottled water, the underlying logic is architecturally sound. This rebrand doubles down on the company’s most potent differentiator: the Evergreen model. Pure fundamentally disrupted the industry by killing the forklift upgrade cycle. By adopting the Everpure moniker, the company signals that its entire stack (hardware, management via Everpure Fusion, and now intelligence) is a permanent, self-evolving organism rather than a depreciating asset.
This move is also a clever play for a market re-rating. When Everpure begins trading on the NYSE on March 5, 2026 (retaining the PSTG ticker), it will be asking investors to view it as a living system rather than a disk-array manufacturer. As Everpure Fusion matures, they are effectively realizing the Enterprise Data Cloud vision: managing global datasets via intent-based policies rather than granular volumes or file paths.
The Acquisition: 1touch is the Brain Upgrade
The intent to acquire 1touch is a solid tactical move that directly supports this announcement. From the vendor’s initial statements, this appears to be far from a standard tuck-in acquisition. Instead, Everpure sees 1touch as a structural pillar, as it enables the company to discover and classify data across hybrid-cloud and SaaS environments in real time. In the previous decade, this was a niche compliance requirement. But in 2026, within the Agentic AI era, this is fast becoming mission-critical infrastructure.
Futurum’s 1H 2026 Data Intelligence, Analytics, & Infrastructure Market Sizing & Five-Year Forecast projects the global Data Intelligence, Analytics, & Infrastructure (DIAI) market to reach $541.1 billion this year, fueled by the shift from GenAI pilots to production-scale context pipelines. The primary bottleneck for these pipelines isn’t compute; it’s the fear of hallucination brought on by a lack of high-quality, timely contextual information. By embedding 1touch’s continuous discovery and knowledge graphs into the storage layer, Everpure is making the infrastructure self-aware. The platform no longer just holds a file. It understands the file’s business context and its relationship to the broader corporate ontology.
Impact on Competitors: The Data Platform War
Everpure’s move encourages every other player in the room to show their hand. NetApp has made strides with BlueXP, but Everpure is attempting to seize the intelligent data plane crown by virtue of its more unified architecture. The rivalry with VAST Data will likely intensify as both companies vie for the AI data platform title, though Everpure now has a bit of a head start in source-level classification. But VAST has been investing heavily in what it terms as the “AI Operating System” with specific agentic orchestration tools lately.
Furthermore, specialized security players like Veeam, Commvault, Cyera, Rubrik and Cohesity should take note. If the Everpure Platform can discover, classify, and enrich data in real-time, the market’s appetite for standalone DSPM tools may shrink. We are seeing the early stages of an autonomous information layer in which security and management are built into the data itself, not separate applications.
Impact on Customers: The Good, The Bad, and The Actionable
For the enterprise, the promise of unified governance is the ultimate prize. If Everpure implements this integration correctly, an administrator could theoretically set a global policy (e.g., “Block the replication of any entity containing health records to unencrypted public buckets”), and the infrastructure will enforce it at the data entity level. This makes for a powerful “shift left” practice, further removing costly data technician downtime from the loop, allowing them to act more as an AI shepherd than a syntax jockey.
However, customers should keep a sharp eye on potential lock-in. If semantic ontologies and data tags are deeply woven into the Everpure ecosystem, migrating to a more fragmented, best-of-breed environment becomes a logistical nightmare. Additionally, while the ticker remains PSTG, Futurum expects to see new metered service SKUs or intelligence-based pricing tiers within Evergreen//One. Data leaders should prepare to pay for the knowledge managed, not just the terabytes consumed.
What to Watch:
- The rebrand goes live immediately, but the real test is the Q2 FY27 integration of 1touch. Watch for how quickly the knowledge graph becomes a native, one-click feature of Everpure Fusion.
- The brand, “Everpure,” sounds premium. Customers should watch closely for new licensing tiers. Will these data intelligence features be included in Evergreen//One, or will they require a new AI governance add-on subscription or purchase?
- Keep an eye out for data monetization services. As Everpure helps CDOs identify and profile “dark” or “shadow” data, the pricing model might shift toward value-based management.
- Expect VAST Data and Dell to respond quickly, likely by partnering with or acquiring other DSPM vendors (such as BigID or Cyera) to match this capability.
See the complete press release on the Everpure rebrand and acquisition of 1touch.io on the Everpure website.
Disclosure: Futurum is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum as a whole.
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Image Credit: Pure Storage (Everpure)
Author Information
Brad Shimmin is Vice President and Practice Lead, Data Intelligence, Analytics, & Infrastructure at Futurum. He provides strategic direction and market analysis to help organizations maximize their investments in data and analytics. Currently, Brad is focused on helping companies establish an AI-first data strategy.
With over 30 years of experience in enterprise IT and emerging technologies, Brad is a distinguished thought leader specializing in data, analytics, artificial intelligence, and enterprise software development. Consulting with Fortune 100 vendors, Brad specializes in industry thought leadership, worldwide market analysis, client development, and strategic advisory services.
Brad earned his Bachelor of Arts from Utah State University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude. Brad lives in Longmeadow, MA, with his beautiful wife and far too many LEGO sets.
