New York, March 30, 2026, 09:14 EDT
CrowdStrike stock climbed roughly 3% in premarket trade this Monday, after Wolfe Research bumped its rating up to Outperform from Peer Perform. The firm pointed to Anthropic’s anticipated rollout of a more advanced AI model, saying it could drive increased security budgets rather than threaten cybersecurity providers. Wolfe assigned a price target of $450. Investing.com
The timing of the call is notable, coming just after reports related to Anthropic’s as-yet-unreleased Mythos model sent cybersecurity stocks tumbling Friday. For investors, the old debate is back: will improved AI agents end up handling more of the cybersecurity heavy lifting—or just turbocharge attacks and push companies to ramp up security budgets? Barron’s
Wolfe’s Joshua Tilton flagged the model as a possible trigger for a “machine speed cyberwar,” adding he’s grown “increased conviction in CRWD’s ability to accelerate ARR growth this year.” He’s looking for Anthropic to make things official in early April. Even a robust debut, he said, would only add fuel to what Wolfe described as an “impending cyber arms race.” Investing.com
Investors are still betting on CrowdStrike, and the company’s latest numbers give a sense of why. Back on March 3, CrowdStrike posted annual recurring revenue of $5.25 billion—a metric tracking subscription sales expected to repeat each year. Net new ARR hit $330.7 million for the quarter, and free cash flow for fiscal 2026 reached $1.24 billion. For fiscal 2027, the company projects ARR in a range between $6.47 billion and $6.52 billion. Its Falcon Flex bundled buying program wrapped up the year with $1.69 billion in ARR, according to CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc..
Some market watchers noted in commentary Friday that chief information officers aren’t so much dropping security tools as consolidating them—a trend that tends to work in favor of broad platforms, with CrowdStrike’s Falcon often getting the nod. Wolfe’s survey of top cybersecurity buyers echoed that sentiment: CrowdStrike landed the No. 1 spot for both projected spend and platform adoption intentions looking out to 2026. Another data point from RSA: 82% of respondents expect AI/ML security spending to climb, higher than any other category. Barchart.com
CrowdStrike is doubling down on that strategy. Just last week, the company rolled out Agentic MDR—managed detection and response—describing it as a new service that pairs intelligent agents with human experts to automate key security tasks. “Security teams need to move beyond manual workflows to machine-speed defense,” said Austin Murphy, vice president and general manager of Falcon Complete. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc.
The pain isn’t limited to a single stock. Friday’s AI-fueled slide knocked down Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, and Fortinet too, a sign that investors were reassessing the entire sector rather than singling out one company. Barron’s
But there’s pushback on the AI story. A bearish note out Sunday flagged the risk that advanced autonomous agents coming out of OpenAI and Anthropic might eventually pose a bigger challenge for CrowdStrike—despite Falcon Flex still fueling growth and driving users deeper into the product lineup for now. Seeking Alpha
Wolfe isn’t calling this a slam-dunk. The firm pointed out the deal carries risks—Anthropic’s upcoming model reveal might actually drag shares lower in the short run. Other red flags: tepid growth in newer modules, price cutting across the sector, and the threat of AI model players pushing further into cybersecurity. Investing.com
Right now, investors seem to be differentiating between AI tools that generate or check code and the kind of security software needed to guard real-world systems at scale. Earlier this month, CrowdStrike founder George Kurtz said the company was “securing AI across every layer from GPU to agent to prompt.” Monday’s upgrade points to lingering demand for that niche, even after last week’s rout. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc.
