Truist Securities on Tuesday moved Shopify (NASDAQ:SHOP) from a Hold to a Buy rating and increased its price target to $150 from $110. In a research note, analyst Terry Tillman said the recent, widespread selloff in software stocks prompted by worries about AI has produced what he views as an attractive entry point for long-term investors.
Tillman wrote that Shopify is among a small group of software companies displaying strong, accelerating growth in recent periods. He identified a set of durable growth drivers that he believes can support one of the best profitable growth profiles at scale in both software and agentic AI. Those drivers, he said, include international expansion, payments, enterprise traction, B2B initiatives and agentic commerce.
The note tackles concerns that AI could enable rapid, low-code or prompt-driven development - a trend sometimes called "vibe coding" - and that such tools might undercut established platforms. Tillman describes those risks as overstated. Vibe coding, he explained, refers to building applications quickly using AI tools and prompt-based, no-code platforms with minimal traditional coding.
Supporting his view, he emphasized Shopify's platform scalability, security and transaction throughput. Tillman pointed to the company's ability to handle extreme peak loads, citing examples such as $5.1 million in sales per minute on Black Friday and 14.8 trillion database queries during Cyber Week. Based on that capacity, he said he does not expect Shopify to be materially affected by vibe coding or prompt-engineered, no-code AI startups in the foreseeable future, nor does he expect those forces to alter Shopify's growth algorithm.
Payments remain a central pillar of the bullish case. Tillman described Shopify's checkout experience as market-leading and highlighted the companys longstanding investments in fintech capabilities. He noted gross payment volume reached $84 billion in the fourth quarter, with payments penetrating 68% of gross merchandise volume. He added that Shop Pay now processes more than half of U.S. total payment volume, and that Shopify Payments is currently available in over 20 countries.
The analyst also laid out five reasons why Shopify could benefit from the emergence of agentic commerce. Those reasons include Shopify's global merchant network, its extensive commerce data, its status as a system of record for many merchants, protocol work such as the Universal Commerce Protocol, and its position as a trusted operating system for brands.
Following a review of fourth-quarter results and early 2026 guidance, Truist raised its 2027 estimates, increasing projected merchant solutions revenue growth to 23% year over year. Truist has not revised its 2026 estimates, but the firm said it expects persistent growth drivers and business momentum to support additional upward revisions during the year.
Analysis context
From an operational and unit-economics perspective, the Truist note highlights several elements investors typically watch in commerce platforms: scalable infrastructure that can absorb holiday peaks without service degradation, payments penetration that drives higher take rates and recurring payment revenue, and data and protocol initiatives that can deepen long-term merchant relationships. Tillmans framing ties those fundamentals to the thesis that the recent AI-related valuation pullback creates a better risk-reward entry point for long-term shareholders.