Which Software Stocks Is BofA Securities Bullish On?

The BofA Securities software research team hosted 18 public and 10 private companies at the BofA Global Technology Conference in San Francisco on June 3-5. 

With an ever-changing macro policy backdrop, the spending environment was the focus of this discussion.  AI product cycles were another key topic discussed, with companies citing healthy pilot activity for agentic applications. 

Based on discussions, participating software companies endorsed a generally stable environment, although companies remained cognizant of underlying risks.

Also Read: Rising AI, Analytics Budgets Could Lift Microsoft, Snowflake, Datadog

Furthermore, the analyst report noted that while product cycles for agentic AI are still in their early stages, they are reportedly gaining traction through initial pilot deals.

Analyst Brad Sills included key takeaways from meetings with participating companies in this report. 

Sills said Microsoft Corp.’s MSFT (Buy, price forecast $515) Commercial CFO Mat McBride suggested sustained momentum in the Azure business, led by healthy cloud migration. According to the analyst, Microsoft is rapidly innovating across the enterprise stack.

ServiceNow’s NOW (Buy, price forecast $1,085) Chief Customer Officer Chris Bedi highlighted solid execution through a tough macro environment in the tariff-impacted manufacturing vertical and DOGE-impacted Federal vertical. ServiceNow noted sustained momentum across the broad IT, customer, and employee application suites. It is expanding rapidly to multiple departments in the enterprise.

In front office applications, Salesforce’s CRM (Buy, price forecast $350) COO and CFO, Robin Washington, reiterated pockets of weakness in tariff-impacted verticals like manufacturing and retail, though noting strength elsewhere, Sills said. According to the analyst, Salesforce is driving growth in both core and Agentforce.

The analyst noted that Datadog’s DDOG (Buy, price forecast $138) CFO, David Obstler, highlighted the company’s expanding product offering and its long-term growth potential for monitoring cloud workloads, which are increasing in volume and complexity due to AI. The analyst noted that Datadog’s AI-native cohort is growing quickly, though volatility is inherent in the consumption model.

Sills said Asana ASAN (Buy, price forecast $21) noted slight incremental macro headwinds in April for its enterprise segment. According to the analyst, AI Studio could represent a powerful second-half 2026 catalyst for Asana.

The analyst noted that software firms cited solid leading indicators for agentic application adoption, though these cycles remain nascent.

He said data management vendors such as Microsoft noted added database activity as enterprises prepare for running agentic AI applications.

DevSecOps software vendor JFrog FROG (Buy, price forecast $48) discussed how AI-focused code is beginning to show up more this year, Sills said. The analyst pronounced JFrog’s setup good heading into the second half of 2025.

Application vendors Salesforce and ServiceNow cited healthy pilot activity for agentic applications, Agentforce, and Now Assist, the analyst noted. However, he said revenue targets are limited at this cycle stage. 

Microsoft cited hundreds of thousands of customers running Microsoft 365 Copilot, expanding deployments, Sills noted. 

He said that OneStream OS (Buy, price forecast $33) highlighted its attractive AI value proposition and adoption trends in the back office with its SensibleAI Forecast offering. OneStream is an AI-powered back-office disruptor.

The analyst said Asana and Freshworks FRSH (Neutral, price forecast $18) noted healthy demand for AI Studio and Freddy AI. Freshworks’ AI offerings are driving up the list across all growth levers.

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