CrowdStrike, Datadog, Microsoft among winners as open-weight model usage rises: MS

What happened

Morgan Stanley said open-weight artificial intelligence models are being used more, and it named CrowdStrike, Datadog, Microsoft, Atlassian, Cloudflare, MongoDB, Nutanix, Palantir, Palo Alto Networks, SAP, and ServiceNow as the strongest beneficiaries, with Box, Salesforce, Manhattan Associates, Shopify, and Toast also potentially benefiting.

Confirmed

Global impact / market context

If open-weight models lower the cost of producing useful intelligence, software vendors could serve more workflows and charge for trusted data, security, and governance. That could lift revenue and broaden usage, but cheaper model access is also available to competitors, so advantage depends on control of enterprise context.

Analyst inference

The note frames open-weight adoption as a shift in how artificial intelligence is bought and used, not just a price change. Investors may weigh which software companies control data, telemetry, secure execution, and transaction processing, because those assets could become more valuable as model costs fall.

Analyst inference

What to watch

1. Morgan Stanley listed CrowdStrike, Datadog, Microsoft, Atlassian, Cloudflare, MongoDB, Nutanix, Palantir, Palo Alto Networks, SAP, and ServiceNow as the strongest beneficiaries from rising open-weight model adoption. Confirmed
2. Watch whether these software vendors expand the range of economically viable workflows and raise the value of assets they control, such as enterprise context, trusted data, telemetry, and governance, as Morgan Stanley suggested. Proposed
3. Track whether cheaper open-weight models broaden adoption for many software firms, which could pressure pricing, while companies that own differentiated data and security functions may keep more profit per sale. Analyst inference

Evidence

• seekingalpha.com