Microsoft's AI leadership inspires increasing confidence in its stock, says BMO

BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman lifted his price target on shares of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to $385 from $347 Friday, writing that he was "increasingly confident" that the technology giant was cementing itself as a leader in artificial intelligence. "While we believe that MSFT remains in the early innings of its AI journey, we are encouraged by the company's pace of development," he wrote in a note to clients. Microsoft "continues to integrate AI Copilot throughout its portfolio, and we think Copilot can lead to incremental revenue generation opportunities over time." Additionally, he estimates that AI could fuel 4% to 6% of upside to his growth estimates for Microsoft's Office business over the next two years. Further, he thinks the company could reap benefits from Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) "We believe NVIDIA's software, in tandem with its GPUs that power Azure Machine Learning, can enhance performance for a variety of AI use cases," Bachman wrote. He rates Microsoft's stock at outperform.

-Emily Bary

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06-09-23 0737ET

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