Here are the biggest analyst moves in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) for this week.
Raymond James upgrades AMD to Strong Buy on robust CPU market outlook
Raymond James has upgraded AMD to Strong Buy from Outperform, extending its AI Factory framework to the server CPU market and forecasting rapid expansion driven by agentic workloads.
The broker sees the server CPU market growing at a 44% five-year compound annual rate to roughly $201 billion by 2030, comprising $33.5 billion of conventional datacenter CPUs, $83 billion of AI head-end CPUs and $85 billion of agentic CPUs. "AMD offers the strongest combination of direct earnings leverage, datacenter positioning and market-share gains," analyst Simon Leopold wrote.
Leopold described agentic AI as the principal new growth engine, with persistent agents generating orchestration, retrieval, database, sandbox and tool-execution workloads that largely run on CPUs.
He noted that demand scales with active agents, workflow duration and concurrency rather than model parameters or token generation, a dynamic that broadly aligns with Nvidia's $200 billion long-term framework and falls below AMD's own $220 billion estimate, which Raymond James said its model can reach under a more aggressive agent adoption scenario.
The analyst cautioned that workload growth will not translate one-for-one into shipments, as higher utilization, software efficiency, custom silicon and offload absorb part of the increase.
UBS cuts SAP to Neutral on slow agentic AI delivery, cloud backlog deceleration risk
Earlier this week, UBS downgraded SAP to Neutral from Buy, flagging slow progress on agentic AI and a likely deceleration in cloud backlog growth (CCB) in the second half. The bank raised its price target to €201 from €164.
Analysts led by Michael Briest said they continue to view SAP as "a pre-eminent system of record with a deep moat around its core business," but believe the company is "only delivering agentic AI into customers' hands slowly," limiting near-term monetization and raising the prospect of customers pursuing DIY AI adoption instead.
To date, SAP has delivered just 17 out-of-the-box AI agents, with a further 15 in ramp-up, against an ambition to reach 200 by year-end that analysts view as "challenging." Last year, SAP set a goal of more than 40 agentic AI scenarios and delivered 10.
UBS estimates CCB organic growth at 24.6% in the second quarter, up marginally from 24.2% at end-2025, though SAP continues to guide for a "slight" slowdown to around 23% for the full year. On margins, cloud gross margins before stock-based compensation fell for the first time since 2021, while higher AI token costs weighed on R&D expenses. SAP's fiscal 2026 EBIT guidance was trimmed by €100 million due to expected acquisition dilution.
Analysts said they no longer expect SAP to hit its "Rule of Forty" target this decade, projecting 37.0% by 2030 versus consensus at 36.5%. They also noted management has flagged IT spending risks since the Gulf conflict began, a message likely to resurface as CCB growth slows in the second half.
"We downgrade SAP to Neutral. We prefer Amadeus in the sector," they concluded.
BofA reiterates ASML at Buy, calls valuation discount to peers 'difficult to justify'
Bank of America has reiterated its Buy rating on ASML, calling it a top pick and arguing its recent underperformance is difficult to justify given its growth outlook.
ASML trades at a 7.7-turn discount to its historical EV/EBIT multiple, at 20.3x CY27 estimated earnings versus a median of 28.0x, and at a 1.6-turn discount to global peers, compared with major U.S. peers trading at a 6.1x-7.0x premium to their own historical averages.
The simultaneous de-rating of ASML alongside the re-rating of peers "largely explains the stock's significant underperformance over the past 12 months," BofA analysts wrote, and called the valuation gap "difficult to justify."
The team cited consensus expectations for ASML to post the second-highest revenue growth among large-cap semicap peers at a 27% CAGR versus a 22% average, and the strongest earnings growth at 39% versus a 33% average.
Margin expansion adds further support, with ASML expected to deliver the largest gross margin gain among leading semicap names over the next three years at 4.6 percentage points, driven by a richer product mix, rising software attach rates and future pricing benefits.
BofA also pushed back on bearish arguments around declining lithography intensity, noting that even assuming 2026 wafer fab equipment spending reaches $160 billion, ASML's 41% equipment sales growth implies lithography intensity of approximately 26%, up from 24.6% in 2025, driven by accelerating EUV adoption in DRAM and higher layer counts more than offsetting headwinds from weaker China demand and limited advanced packaging exposure.
The bank reiterated its Buy with a price objective of €2,452, saying its estimates sit above consensus and that it continues to see "compelling value" in the stock.
Analysts downgrade Intuit as weak guidance signals AI disruption spreading beyond TurboTax
JPMorgan and Bank of America have both downgraded Intuit to Neutral following results that showed competitive pressures spreading beyond TurboTax into the company's broader business.
Intuit forecast fiscal 2027 revenue of $23.28-$23.51 billion, implying 9-10% growth, down from 14% in 2026 and below the analyst estimate of $23.72 billion, attributing the slowdown to weaker Mailchimp sales, continued desktop product declines, and lower average revenue per TurboTax customer.
Fourth-quarter revenue rose 13.6% to $4.35 billion, beating estimates of $4.27 billion, but shares fell sharply in premarket trading on the guidance miss.
JPMorgan's Samik Chatterjee slashed his December 2027 price target to $331 from $605, saying disruption risks have expanded to the QuickBooks-focused Global Business Solutions segment, not just TurboTax, with slowing new customer additions across both units. He said the stock's valuation multiple is likely to stay pressured until investors gain more confidence in execution.
Separately, BofA's Tal Liani cut his price target to $360 from $400, saying results suggest TurboTax is losing share to lower-cost AI-based alternatives rather than benefiting from higher-value assisted offerings, and flagged enterprise-segment weakness with online customer count growing just 3% year-over-year.
Both banks see fiscal 2027 as a year of heavier investment, with Intuit pushing lower pricing, promotional offers and distribution expansion to rebuild its new customer pipeline, an effort BofA analysts said "could put weight on margins and will take time to generate meaningful growth benefits."
Northland upgrades Semtech, says connectivity is "the AI bottleneck" driving share gains
Northland Capital Markets has upgraded Semtech to Outperform with a $182 price target, arguing the chip firm is gaining share in a part of the AI stack that is now constraining performance.
"We believe that connectivity is currently the AI bottleneck in terms of power and performance, benefiting SMTC as it gains market share in both copper and optical connectivity," analyst Gus Richard wrote. Data center revenue now accounts for 30% of total sales, with Northland expecting that to reach 44% by end-2027, driving gross margin into the mid-60% range alongside LoRa and the divestiture of the cellular module business.
Second-quarter adjusted EPS of $0.71 on revenue of $342 million came in ahead of consensus of $0.61 on $328 million. Infrastructure sales climbed 25% sequentially and 69% year-over-year to $124 million, with data center revenue hitting a record $100 million — up 91% from a year earlier — on 800G, 1.6T CopperEdge and the early ramp of 1.6T FiberEdge.
Richard said FiberEdge is designed into every module provider targeting the data center market and should exceed 50% share by end of fiscal 2027.
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