We recently published a list of Top 10 AI News Updates You Should Not Miss. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Varonis Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) stands against other top AI news updates you should not miss.
Leading companies across diverse industries, including electronics, IT infrastructure, surveillance, renewable energy, robotics, and cybersecurity, are heavily investing in AI and machine learning to leverage the technology for widescale innovation. In turn, companies are able to reduce operational costs, tackle workforce challenges, and transform client experiences.
For instance, in the IT infrastructure space, AI spending is expected to jump to $509.1 billion in 2027 from $175.9 billion in 2023, according to the IDC. The spending on AI platforms is expected to rise as they become increasingly important for business’s digital operations.
“Harnessing machine learning can be transformational, but for it to be successful, enterprises need leadership from the top. This means understanding that when machine learning changes one part of the business — the product mix, for example — then other parts must also change. This can include everything from marketing and production to supply chain, and even hiring and incentive systems,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, co-founder of Workhelix.
Elsewhere, PwC global chairman, Mohamed Kande, during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos urged people to not be afraid of AI in the workplace but embrace it as a digital colleague.
“People fear what they don’t understand, so exposing them to the technology, putting in their hands makes a big difference,” Kande said about AI, adding that doing so allows employees to view AI as a “digital colleague…You don’t fear your colleagues, you partner with them…So we are actually asking people to partner with the technology.”
For this article, we selected AI stocks by reviewing news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. We listed the stocks in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiment taken from Insider Monkey’s database of 900 hedge funds.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
A close up of a software engineer typing on a laptop keyboard, focusing on the code development part of the company.
Varonis Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 42
Varonis Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS) is a cybersecurity firm that offers a security software platform to automate the management and protection of unstructured data with patented AI and ML algorithms. The AI software performs user behavior analytics and forensic analysis via platforms like data advantage, data privilege, and the data classification engine for automated threat detection and response. The company focuses on safeguarding enterprise data, financial records, intellectual property, and confidential data of individuals.
On January 16th, Citi lowered the company’s stock price target to $46 from $57 and retained a “Neutral” rating. The brokerage also opened a “30-day negative catalyst watch” on the shares. It said the company’s installed base conversions will trend up, but declining net revenue retention optics are likely for 2024, which is being under-appreciated, risking a negative headline read from the Q4 report. Citi sees “limited upside scope from here,” citing stiff competition and its “un-inflecting demand fieldwork.”
Overall, VRNS ranks 4th on our list of top AI news updates you should not miss. While we acknowledge the potential of VRNS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than VRNS but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
