New York, May 27, 2026, 19:03 (EDT)
- ServiceNow climbed 2.2% to $102.12 after the U.S. close, beating gains in the software sector.
- Oppenheimer stuck with its Outperform rating and kept the $130 target. The firm cited a customer survey that showed demand was holding up.
- The rebound is still on shaky ground. AI disruption, margin squeeze, and slow government deals are all lingering.
ServiceNow shares gained Wednesday, outperforming a weak software sector. Investors shrugged off this year’s steep drop and bet on new signals that enterprise demand is holding up.
The stock traded at $102.12 in afternoon activity, up around 2.2%. It hit $106.59 earlier. Roughly 28.5 million shares changed hands. Market cap was about $106.2 billion.
The move hit during Tuesday’s normal trading hours in New York after markets closed for Memorial Day on Monday. The NYSE runs core trading from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET and notes Memorial Day, May 25, as a holiday on its 2026 calendar.
The move took place as software peers traded mixed. Salesforce slipped 0.8%, Oracle dropped 1.1%. Workday ticked up 0.4%. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF was off about 1.1%.
Oppenheimer kept its Outperform and $130 target on ServiceNow after talks with 64 ServiceNow customers this month. The firm said customers are still put ServiceNow’s AI, IT, risk and security products high on their spending lists, even with hiring under strain.
ServiceNow is still working through losses. The stock dropped 2.16% to $99.92 on Tuesday, MarketWatch data showed. Shares bounced Wednesday but stayed far under last year’s peak.
ServiceNow (NOW) reported its first-quarter numbers in April, with subscription revenue at $3.67 billion, a 22% gain. Current remaining performance obligations came in at $12.64 billion, up 22.5% from a year ago. CEO Bill McDermott said the quarter “beat the high end” of guidance. ServiceNow Investor Relations
ServiceNow is trying to pitch itself as more than a software provider, positioning as a control layer for business AI. The company in May let outside AI agents, like Anthropic’s Claude, use its Action Fabric system. Now, those agents can kick off approved workflows, not just read or write data. Anthropic’s Boris Cherny said, “The gap between knowing and doing is where productivity dies.” ServiceNow Newsroom
OpenAI has picked up ServiceNow’s marketing chief. The company hired Colin Fleming as CMO of its business unit, Adweek said Tuesday, showing OpenAI is pushing deeper with its enterprise focus. Fleming said leaving ServiceNow was “gut-wrenching” but added he’d have “regretted not taking the swing.” Adweek
Bank of America is betting on ServiceNow, bringing it back with a Buy call and a $130 target, while at the same time giving Salesforce an Underperform. The analyst team, led by Tal Liani, sees ServiceNow as set to benefit from AI, according to Barron’s. Salesforce, on the other hand, is seen as dealing with a “structural reset.” Barron’s
Market optimism might be running ahead of reality. Last month Reuters said ServiceNow’s first-quarter subscription growth was held back by slow government deals in the Middle East. The Armis buy is set to hit cash flow and margins. UBS lowered its rating to Neutral in April, with the bank warning about IT budgets moving to AI and the risk that customers could use new AI tools to build their own simpler apps instead.
For now, traders see a simple setup. Demand checks came in solid, and there’s still appetite for ServiceNow’s AI story. But the real test is down the line, where the company has to prove its AI agents boost revenue faster than they disrupt the older software model.
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