Chicago, IL – July 24, 2025 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: C3.ai, Inc. AI, Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR and Snowflake Inc. SNOW.
C3.ai, Inc. is once again in the spotlight after its shares jumped 17.9% over the past month, outpacing the broader S&P 500’s 3.9% rally and a 3.4% decline in the industry.
The rally comes amid renewed investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence plays, as market participants look to capitalize on long-term demand for enterprise AI solutions. With C3.ai outperforming its peers and broader indices, the key question now is whether the stock’s recent strength reflects sustainable business momentum or speculative fervor.
In the same time frame, its industry peer Palantir Technologies Inc. has risen 4%, while Snowflake Inc. has slipped 4.8%.
The stock closed at $28.49 on Tuesday, below its 52-week high of $45.08 but well above its 52-week low of $17.03.
Technical indicators imply AI’s continued strong performance. The stock is trading above its 50-day moving average, signaling robust upward momentum and price stability. This technical strength underscores positive market sentiment and confidence in AI’s financial health and prospects.
C3.ai’s recent performance underscores several key factors driving its momentum in the enterprise AI space. One of the most important growth levers is the company’s highly differentiated position as a pure-play provider of turnkey enterprise AI applications.
While many industry players focus on infrastructure or AI tools, C3.ai offers ready-to-deploy solutions that address core business problems such as supply-chain optimization, fraud detection and predictive maintenance. These applications are built atop its proprietary C3 AI Agentic AI Platform, which allows rapid deployment at scale, something a few others have achieved despite significant investments in piecemeal AI architectures.
Another major contributor to growth has been the expansion of C3.ai’s strategic partner ecosystem. The company has aligned with major cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud, integrating its applications into their sales channels. These relationships not only boost C3.ai’s market access but also streamline contract processes by leveraging existing enterprise agreements. The company also formed key alliances with consulting firms like PwC and McKinsey QuantumBlack, which are expected to help drive deeper industry penetration and scalability.
Crucially, agentic AI has emerged as a major differentiator for C3.ai. While many competitors have only recently begun discussing this technology, C3.ai holds an early patent from December 2022 and claims to have more than 100 agentic AI solutions already in production. These applications are actively used across defense, manufacturing and government sectors.
The company reports that its agentic AI business alone generates approximately $60 million in annual recurring revenues and is poised for significant expansion, potentially even warranting a standalone valuation higher than C3.ai’s current market value.
Finally, C3.ai is seeing tangible benefits from broad industry diversification. While oil and gas remain a key vertical, bolstered by its renewed Baker Hughes agreement, the company is rapidly growing in areas such as manufacturing, life sciences, and state and local governments.
Notably, C3.ai’s AI solutions are used by clients like the U.S. Air Force, Shell, GSK and the State of California, underscoring strong real-world utility and return on investment. With continued innovation, a scalable partner-driven model, and proprietary agentic AI capabilities, C3.ai appears well-positioned to capitalize on the expanding enterprise AI market.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 and 2027 loss per share has narrowed to 37 cents and 16 cents from a loss of 47 cents and 45 cents in the past 60 days, respectively.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 and 2027 sales implies growth of 20.1% and 21.8%, respectively. Meanwhile, Palantir Technologies sales in 2025 are likely to increase 36.8%, whereas Snowflake sales in fiscal 2026 are likely to witness increases of 24.6% year over year.
Despite the recent gain, AI is priced at a discount relative to its industry. It has a forward 12-month price-to-sales ratio of 7.8, which is well below the industry average. Meanwhile, Palantir Technologies and Snowflake’s forward 12-month price-to-sales ratios are 77.57 and 14.19, respectively.
C3.ai stands out as a compelling buy for investors looking to tap into the long-term potential of enterprise AI. The company’s edge lies in its fully developed, ready-to-deploy AI applications tailored for real-world business problems, unlike many peers still focused on building fragmented tools or infrastructure. Its strong strategic partnerships with major cloud providers and top-tier consultancies give it broad market reach and execution strength.
What truly differentiates C3.ai is its early and deep investment in agentic AI, which is already generating meaningful revenues and adoption across critical sectors like defense and manufacturing. This positions the company ahead of the curve in a technology area many competitors are only beginning to explore.
Coupled with improving financial forecasts, expanding industry footprint and a valuation that remains attractive relative to peers, C3.ai offers a rare mix of innovation, credibility and growth potential that makes it a smart buy for forward-looking investors. AI currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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