New York, Feb 6, 2026, 20:05 (EST) — The market has closed.
- Snowflake shares jumped roughly 7.5% Friday, ending a three-day losing streak.
- The company’s been touting stricter “governed” AI tools lately, as investors weigh if these new models actually boost—or just squeeze—software budgets.
- All eyes on Feb. 25, when Snowflake drops its quarterly numbers.
Shares of Snowflake Inc (SNOW) jumped 7.5% Friday, closing at $168.43. The move followed a tough week that had seen the cloud data firm’s stock slide for several days.
This rebound is notable—software stocks have been on edge, and Snowflake is right at the center of the action. With fresh AI models and “agents” on the scene, worries are back: certain enterprise apps could get pinched, while more dollars move into data and infrastructure.
Snowflake’s stock is particularly twitchy, thanks to its pay-as-you-go setup. Usage can surge or drop fast—big projects kick in, or they freeze. Earnings are coming up later this month, and investors are puzzling over whether AI is actually driving up usage, or simply shifting what customers spend on. 1
Snowflake announced Feb. 5 that Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 is now live on Snowflake Cortex AI, its feature for deploying large language models on secure enterprise data. Users can run text and code generation directly through Cortex AI. 2
Friday’s bounce offered some relief, but the stock remains roughly 12% lower since Feb. 2. Shares tumbled from $190.68 to $156.71 in just three sessions, then managed to recover part of those losses. 3
Thursday’s reveal of Anthropic’s improved Claude model gave software stocks another jolt, fueling persistent worries that AI could sideline the old guard. “The goal,” Anthropic’s Scott White said, “was to connect AI to existing tools to get more value out of those tools.” 4
Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy is making a case for governance, saying that eye-catching coding agents don’t hold up in regulated environments. “Coding agents tend to break down when they’re introduced to complex enterprise constraints like regulated data, fine-grained access controls, and audit requirements,” he told Fast Company. 5
Investors are focused on one thing: whether Snowflake’s AI features actually drive more usage on the platform—without slashing prices too deeply. The stock’s been acting as a real-time gauge of that bet.
The core issue? Guidance. Snowflake shares took a hit in December, sliding after the company predicted slower product revenue growth for the quarter and flagged that discounts on big, multi-year contracts were weighing on outlook. 6
U.S. markets stay closed until Monday, leaving traders eyeing Friday’s bounce to see if it sticks when trading resumes. After a turbulent week, attention is on the software group. For SNOW, any new signal about enterprise tech budgets could trigger swift moves.
The next big test comes Feb. 25. That’s when Snowflake will release its quarterly results and hold its earnings call. 7
