New York, February 24, 2026, 10:31 (EST) — Regular session
CrowdStrike shares rose about 2.3% to $358.46 by 10:29 a.m. EST on Tuesday, steadying after a sharp drop in the prior session as U.S. stocks recovered ground. (Google)
The bounce matters because traders are treating big cybersecurity names like CrowdStrike as a live test of whether new AI tools can nibble away at parts of security software. The market has been quick to sell first and ask questions later when a new product pitch hints at automation.
On Monday, CrowdStrike and peers Datadog and Zscaler fell around 11% after AI startup Anthropic rolled out “Claude Code Security,” a tool designed to find high-severity vulnerabilities in open-source repositories and propose fixes. “What you’re seeing today is really the continuation of a panic-driven, narrative-led selloff,” said Shrenik Kothari, director, security and infrastructure analyst at Robert W. Baird, adding the new tool does not handle real-time tasks such as detecting live intrusions or stopping attacks in progress. (Reuters)
That has left the stock jumpy. The selling also underlined how quickly sentiment can turn on software names that sit near the center of the AI debate.
Anthropic has kept the pressure on the broader group, unveiling 10 new “plug-ins” for business customers on Tuesday as it pushes deeper into enterprise workflows, Reuters reported. The startup said the additions were developed with partners including LSEG, FactSet, Salesforce’s Slack and DocuSign. (Reuters)
CrowdStrike, for its part, leaned into the argument that AI is speeding up attackers, not making security obsolete. The company said its 2026 Global Threat Report found AI-enabled adversaries increased operations 89% year over year and that average “breakout time” — how fast intruders move from first access to spreading inside a victim’s environment — fell to 29 minutes in 2025. “This is an AI arms race,” said Adam Meyers, head of counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike. (CrowdStrike)
Investors are now trying to separate code-scanning tools from platforms that monitor endpoints, identities and cloud workloads in live environments. The distinction matters for budgets: add-ons are one thing; substitutes are another.
There is also a downside case. If buyers start to believe AI can shrink the work behind vulnerability management and incident response, software multiples can compress further even if demand stays firm. A weak outlook would amplify that shift.
The next hard catalyst is CrowdStrike’s fourth-quarter and full-year results, due after the U.S. market close on March 3, with a conference call set for 5 p.m. Eastern. (Nasdaq)
Between now and then, traders will be watching for more AI product launches that force the same question back onto the tape: helpful tool, or early warning shot.
