Analyst Ratings February 17, 2026

BMO Sticks With Outperform on Datadog, Cites AI-Driven Opportunity Despite Competitive Risks

Analyst keeps $165 target after Investor Day, highlights strong margins and multi-segment ARR milestones

By Priya Menon DDOG
BMO Sticks With Outperform on Datadog, Cites AI-Driven Opportunity Despite Competitive Risks
DDOG

BMO Capital reiterated an Outperform rating on Datadog Inc. with a $165 price target following the company’s Investor Day, citing the firm’s broad portfolio, high gross margins and sustained revenue growth. While BMO acknowledged competitive risk from AI-related entrants, it expects observability demand to scale with expanding workloads and for Datadog’s AI-specific offerings to add incremental adoption. Several other brokerages adjusted targets after the company’s latest results and 2026 guidance.

Key Points

  • BMO Capital reaffirmed an Outperform rating on Datadog and kept its $165 price target after attending Investor Day, implying significant upside from the $125.38 stock price.
  • Datadog reported sustained revenue momentum with 29% year-over-year growth in the latest quarter and 28% growth for the year; Infrastructure, APM and Logs have each exceeded $1 billion in annual recurring revenue, impacting enterprise software and cloud infrastructure markets.
  • Several brokerages adjusted price targets following results and guidance - reflecting varied interpretations of Datadog’s 2026 outlook and its competitive positioning in observability and AI-related workloads.

BMO Capital reaffirmed an Outperform rating on Datadog Inc. and left its price target at $165 after attending the company’s Investor Day. The target implies a material upside relative to the stock’s then-current price of $125.38, even as InvestingPro data shows the share price trading slightly above its Fair Value.

At Investor Day, BMO evaluated Datadog’s position as the observability market evolves with expanding AI capabilities and workloads. The firm acknowledged that developments in AI introduce some competitive pressure to the observability platform provider. Despite that headwind, BMO noted that Datadog currently generates nearly 80% gross profit margins and has delivered robust top-line expansion, with revenue up 27.68% over the past 12 months.

BMO’s analysis emphasized the company’s product breadth and pace of innovation as central to sustaining growth as workloads proliferate. The firm expects demand for observability to rise in step with broader workload growth, explicitly including AI workloads, and said that trend should support adoption of Datadog’s newer AI-specific tools while continuing to underpin usage of its core platform.

The analyst view is that continued portfolio expansion will be an important driver of Datadog’s competitive positioning going forward. BMO maintained its $165 price objective and Outperform recommendation in the wake of those Investor Day takeaways.

Datadog’s own reported results reinforced momentum: the company recorded accelerated revenue growth for the third straight quarter, showing a 29% year-over-year increase in the most recent quarter and 28% growth for the full year. Management also highlighted that each of Datadog’s principal segments - Infrastructure, Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Logs - has cleared $1 billion in annual recurring revenue.

Brokerage responses to those results and to management’s 2026 guidance were mixed. Scotiabank trimmed its price target to $160 from $180 while noting a positive take on Datadog’s 2026 revenue guidance, which exceeded buy-side expectations. Canaccord Genuity lowered its target to $185 from $210 but kept a Buy rating and pointed to the company’s cautious growth posture. BMO itself adjusted its target to $165 from $170, observing that fiscal 2026 revenue guidance was below consensus but still above buy-side expectations.

Other firms also revised estimates: Raymond James introduced a $170 target, down from $205, after Datadog’s fourth-quarter performance beat key metrics and the initial 2026 guidance slightly outpaced market consensus. Meanwhile, a Citizens analyst reiterated a Market Perform rating and highlighted the company’s expansion across its observability pillars as impressive.

The combination of solid margin structure, double-digit revenue growth and multi-billion-dollar ARR segments was central to BMO’s continued constructive stance, even as the firm flagged competitive risk associated with the evolving AI landscape. The range of analyst reactions and target resets underscores divergent views on how near-term guidance and longer-term opportunity translate into valuation.

Risks

  • Competitive pressure tied to expanding AI capabilities could challenge Datadog’s market share in observability, affecting enterprise software and cloud monitoring vendors.
  • Fiscal 2026 revenue guidance was reported below consensus, which creates uncertainty around near-term growth expectations and could influence software sector valuations.
  • Mixed analyst reactions and downward adjustments to price targets signal investor sensitivity to guidance and execution risk, potentially increasing volatility in Datadog’s stock and related technology sector securities.

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