Evercore ISI told investors that the market's recent decline in AI-exposed equities has been broad and undifferentiated, creating opportunities to identify businesses with long-lasting strategies as corporate adoption of artificial intelligence gains pace.
Analysts at the firm described the market mood as one where investors often "sell first, ask questions later," a dynamic that has pushed down share prices regardless of individual companies' "business model, strategy, moats or AI earnings potential."
Julian Emanuel, an analyst at Evercore ISI, said AI is already reshaping corporate strategy across the economy. The firm recalled its 2023 estimate that "every sector and occupation will be leveraged by Generative AI," and noted that the technology's use is spreading beyond the early infrastructure providers as firms reassess workflows and competitive positioning.
Evercore said it expects outperformance from companies that adopt AI earlier and that construct defenses around orchestration, secure enterprise guardrails, and agentic execution across siloed data.
The analysts also warned that investor pressure on management teams to "act now" is increasing as Evercore ISI views AI entering a "critical acceleration phase in 2025-2026." Against that backdrop, the firm singled out eight companies it believes are well positioned to capture benefits as AI becomes more widely embedded in business processes.
- Microsoft (MSFT) - Included among the names Evercore prefers as part of its "scaffolding" group, seen as structurally advantageous as AI frameworks solidify.
- Snowflake (SNOW) - Also categorized as a "scaffolding" name that the firm prefers in the current environment.
- Palo Alto Networks (PANW) - Viewed as the cybersecurity firm best positioned to be a primary beneficiary of enterprise AI adoption.
- Amazon (AMZN) - Described as deploying AI to accelerate both its cloud business, with evidence cited as AWS Acceleration, and its retail business via the Rufus agentic commerce agent, which Evercore said should help lead to growth acceleration.
- Booking Holdings (BKNG) - Evercore believes online travel agencies can be major beneficiaries of AI by diversifying traffic sources with large language models and generating agentic offerings that could lift conversion rates.
- C.H. Robinson Worldwide (CHRW) - Noted for generating substantial market share gains and margin expansion during what the firm calls the longest freight market downturn in history by applying Lean AI principles to improve productivity.
- Waystar (WAY) - Identified as benefiting from AI through automation of revenue cycle management, including claim scrubbing, denial prediction, and workflow optimization.
- Apollo Global Management (APO) - Characterized as a relative winner that offers a defensive focus.
Evercore also quoted Kirk Materne, who expects most investors to adopt a "wait and see" posture even in the face of datapoints that the firm says suggest a disconnect between market sentiment toward software and fundamentals, as debate about existential risk continues. Under that backdrop, the firm stated it prefers "scaffolding" names such as MSFT and SNOW over application-level companies.
The firm emphasized concrete, product-oriented levers through which AI is already affecting outcomes: in cloud and retail deployment, in cybersecurity's role protecting enterprise AI use, in travel-booking conversion dynamics powered by agentic services, in logistics productivity from Lean AI, and in healthcare revenue cycle automation.
Evercore's analysis frames the current selloff as an opportunity to distinguish firms with structural advantages in AI adoption from those facing greater execution or competitive risk as the technology becomes more pervasive.
Article note: The firm highlighted a set of names it believes are best positioned to benefit from enterprise AI developments and noted increasing investor urgency as adoption accelerates toward 2025-2026.