AI fuels cybersecurity growth momentum Wedbush bets on CrowdStrike (CRWD.US) stock price to reach a record high in 2026

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Wedbush, a well-known investment agency on Wall Street, released a research report saying that CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (CRWD.US), an important player in the cybersecurity field, will be one of the best investment methods to “bet on the intersection of cybersecurity and AI” in 2026. The agency maintained a “outperforming market” rating for the cybersecurity service provider's stock and a target price of up to $600, adding that CrowdStrike will be the core winner on the IVES AI 30 (US AI Technology Top 30) list compiled by Wedbush in 2026. CrowdStrike's latest stock price is hovering at $477, with a 40% increase since this year. Wedbush's target price means a potential increase of 25%, and will break through to the record high of $566 in November.

CrowdStrike — a cybersecurity giant benefiting from the global AI wave. As the world enters the AI era, the current cybersecurity market has maintained a strong growth trend. Global companies, especially US tech giants, are steadily increasing their investment in cybersecurity driven by multiple factors. The logic behind this is mainly due to factors such as cloud computing and generative AI technology leading to an expansion of the global “attack surface”, increasingly complex cyber threat methods (including hackers using the most advanced AI models), and increasingly strict regulatory compliance requirements surrounding AI and data security.

CrowdStrike has fully incorporated groundbreaking generative artificial intelligence technology into its cybersecurity platform services, in particular by introducing an artificial intelligence security analyst called “Charlotte.” This feature is designed to empower every user of the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform to quickly create workflows based on generative artificial intelligence. By asking questions and interacting with Charlotte, a virtual AI analyst, users can quickly and easily use low-threshold AI chatbot operation methods to quickly and easily use low-threshold AI chatbot operation methods to understand real-time cybersecurity vulnerabilities, threat factors, and other security issues, significantly enhancing the effectiveness and user experience of the platform.

“CrowdStrike is still one of our favorite tech stocks. We see that trading momentum is spreading to other targets, and AI is also a clear tailwind factor for this well-positioned technology leader. We believe CrowdStrike's market share and intellectual share among new and existing customers is increasing, and the company's product suite will continue to expand over the next 12 to 18 months to cover a wider range of business operations.” Wedbush analysts led by Dan Ives said.

Analysts pointed out that the company's continued platform adoption model has driven strong performance, and the momentum in terms of cybersecurity cloud, identity (identity verification), and logscale is quite healthy; at the same time, the expansion trend of data protection (data protection) and Charlotte AI is better than market expectations. Charlotte AI showed considerable financial strength in recent quarterly exchanges. Wedbush analysts believe that based on recent channel research, the company's transaction momentum has accelerated in the January quarter up to now.

Analysts added that at a time when companies still prioritize AI to drive operational efficiency and are entering a critical year for AI monetization, they are seeing more module add-ons (module add-ons) in CrowdStrike's core vertical, proving that the evolution of the company's AI-based platform growth trend is still at a very early stage.

Ives and his team said, “Since the beginning of 2025, the revenue scale associated with 'AI+ cybersecurity products' has been significantly higher than the same period last year, and we expect to see an accelerated upward trend; this will reinforce all signs and point to higher returns from AI-based cybersecurity spending, and with the strength and stickiness of the Falcon platform, CrowdStrike is in a good position to continue grasping AI+ cybersecurity trends.”

Analysts added that as the threat landscape continues to rise, such as the beginning of using AI to increase the complexity of malware attacks, CrowdStrike has taken key strategic steps to integrate AI into its entire product portfolio to grasp the strong demand for advanced and continuously updated cybersecurity solutions to protect IT and AI infrastructure platforms covering the entire enterprise technology stack.

Ives and his team pointed out that CrowdStrike is still the gold standard in cybersecurity, and the company's multi-year growth story is still in its early stages; net new annual recurring revenue (Net New Annual Recurring Revenue, or NNARR) is expected to accelerate again in 2026.

“At this point, we think Wall Street is underestimating Crowdstrike's growth potential as a second/third derivative beneficiary of the AI revolution, which also explains our core reason for the stock's continued strong bullish run from current levels. In the most optimistic bullish scenario, we are likely to see CrowdStrike stock hit $700 over the next year as the company implements its core growth strategy. We also still believe that cybersecurity, a sub-sector of the Nasdaq 100 Index, may significantly outperform the average trend in the broader technology sector.” Ives and his team said.