What happened
Shares of C3.ai (AI -2.62%) were surging again today as the company got another analyst upgrade, and investors continued to bid AI stocks higher.
As of 12:59 p.m. ET, the stock was up 21.9%.
So what
Last night, DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria raised his rating on the AI-focused software-as-a-service (SaaS) stock to "buy," saying C3.ai is "a truly scarce asset in a critical software arena," and that the generative AI could be a "killer app" for artificial intelligence.
He gave the stock a price target of $30, implying a 37% upside from its closing price last night.
The analyst endorsement was the latest piece of good news for C3.ai, whose shares have surged this week as investors look for ways to get exposure to the artificial intelligence boom. For example, Microsoft is quickly launching new products featuring ChatGPT and other AI tools, and Alphabet spent much of its earnings call last night talking up its investments in artificial intelligence.
C3.ai isn't standing still. Earlier this week, the company announced the launch of a generative AI product suite whose first product will be focused on enterprise search, giving businesses ChatGPT-like tools to search for data across all of their information systems.
CEO Thomas Siebel said, "C3 Generative AI fundamentally changes the human-computer interaction model of enterprise application software."
Generative AI refers to artificial intelligence that is able to create things like text and images.
Now what
C3.ai shares are now up roughly 150% over the last month as interest in AI has boomed. The field is wide open at the moment, but the company has struggled for most of its publicly traded history, meaning its success isn't guaranteed.
Still, the new enterprise search product seems promising and could help establish the company as a major player in generative AI. Keep an eye on the new product, as it's scheduled to become generally available in March.
