Wedbush’s Dan Ives believes 2026 will be a breakout year for stocks at the intersection of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.
In a new CNBC interview, Ives says the story is moving beyond just the biggest AI infrastructure winners and into second and third derivative beneficiaries, with cybersecurity at the top of the list.
“This is going to be the year for cybersecurity meets AI because as all these workloads are moving to the cloud, the use cases are building… Cybersecurity is going to be front and center.”
He says that while the AI buildout begins with big tech and hyperscalers, the next phase will shift toward the companies that secure the entire stack.
“Now of course, it all starts with big tech in terms of Nvidia, Microsoft, hyperscalers… But I think the reality is that it’s all about second, third, fourth derivatives… It’s going to be a golden year for cybersecurity.”
Ives points to CrowdStrike (CRWD) as a key name at that intersection, describing it as overlooked despite what he sees as an expanding AI security footprint.
“And I think what [CrowdStrike CEO George] Kurtz and the team are doing, they’re at the intersection. And I think they probably have some of the best AI footprints when it comes to cybersecurity. Investors are way under the radar in terms of this name.”
Ives says that as enterprises deploy AI use cases, they will immediately run into a separate, unavoidable issue of securing user data and agentic systems operating in the cloud.
“You have the Nvidia chips, you have the hyperscaler build out, you go on a use case, an enterprise. How do you protect the work? How do you know the users internally, externally? That’s all in the cloud.”
He says the mechanism creates an expanding attack surface tied directly to AI adoption, including threats arising from agents and automated workflows.
“That’s a whole other use case in terms of agents, in terms of threats. That’s where CrowdStrike is going after.”
Ives adds that the scale of AI spending supports a bullish path for the stock, tying his upside view to what he sees as early innings in AI use cases.
“And when I think about, $700 bull case, because right now, we’re talking about trillions that are going to be spent. I mean, we’re still in the early innings from the use case perspective.”
At time of publishing, CRWD is trading at $481.
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