New York, February 24, 2026, 10:31 (EST) — Regular session
CrowdStrike bounced back Tuesday morning, up roughly 2.3% at $358.46 as of 10:29 a.m. EST. The move followed a steep selloff in the previous session, with U.S. stocks overall regaining some lost ground.
The rebound is noteworthy—traders are using major cybersecurity stocks such as CrowdStrike as a gauge for how much AI-powered tools might erode portions of the security software sector. Whenever a new product pitch suggests automation, the market hasn’t hesitated to dump shares before pausing to assess the details.
Shares of CrowdStrike, Datadog, and Zscaler each dropped about 11% on Monday, following the debut of Anthropic’s “Claude Code Security”—an AI tool aiming to spot severe vulnerabilities in open-source code and suggest fixes. “What you’re seeing today is really the continuation of a panic-driven, narrative-led selloff,” said Shrenik Kothari, director and security/infrastructure analyst at Robert W. Baird. Kothari noted the tool doesn’t tackle real-time threats, like catching live intrusions or blocking active attacks. Reuters
The stock’s been volatile. That wave of selling showed just how fast sentiment can flip on software companies in the thick of the AI conversation.
Anthropic turned up the heat on the sector this day, rolling out 10 new “plug-ins” aimed at its business clients, according to Reuters. The fresh tools, part of its drive into enterprise operations, came together with help from partners such as LSEG, FactSet, Salesforce’s Slack, and DocuSign, the startup said. Reuters
CrowdStrike isn’t buying the idea that AI spells the end for cybersecurity. Instead, the company points to its 2026 Global Threat Report: AI-powered adversaries ramped up activity by 89% over the past year. That same report shows “breakout time”—the window it takes intruders to expand their reach after initial access—shrinking to just 29 minutes in 2025. “This is an AI arms race,” said Adam Meyers, head of counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike
Investors are starting to draw sharper lines between code-scanning products and platforms that monitor endpoints, identities and cloud workloads as they run. That split has budget implications—add-ons land differently than replacements.
A downside scenario looms too. Should buyers come to think AI will shave more labor off vulnerability management and incident response, software multiples could face even steeper compression—demand holding up wouldn’t necessarily stop it. If the outlook sours, expect that move to accelerate.
Investors are looking toward CrowdStrike’s Q4 and full-year earnings, which will drop after the U.S. bell on March 3. The company’s conference call is booked for 5 p.m. Eastern.
In the meantime, any fresh AI product drop is likely to put the same debate squarely in focus for traders—does it look like a useful upgrade, or does it feel more like a caution flag?
