DDOG
The AI winner nobody can ignore
While Microsoft, Adobe, ServiceNow, and Snowflake have been getting tossed around like a bad group chat, Datadog has been the quiet overachiever in the corner. The stock is up about 66% year-to-date, and JPMorgan says the party might not be over, hanging an Overweight rating and a $320 price target on the name.
Why Datadog keeps flexing
Here’s the twist: Datadog isn’t just riding the vague “AI” wave. It’s benefiting from the very unglamorous reality that AI makes cloud systems more complicated. More models, more agents, more infrastructure sprawl — and suddenly everyone needs better monitoring, observability, and analytics just to keep the lights on.
That’s Datadog’s sweet spot. And when a company crosses $1 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time while also raising guidance, Wall Street starts treating it less like a lottery ticket and more like a business with actual gravity.
The bigger market tell
The broader AI software trade has looked a little wobbly in 2026, with investors showing less patience for expensive growth stories that haven’t fully monetized yet. Datadog is winning because it feels more immediate: enterprises are deploying AI now, and they need the plumbing to hold up.
So while the headline is about one stock crushing a few big names, the subtext is bigger: investors are getting picky about which AI winners are real. Datadog is looking increasingly like one of the real ones.
Big picture: if AI is the shiny new toy, Datadog is the user manual, the battery pack, and the fire extinguisher all rolled into one.