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The Cyber Stock That Gets Paid When AI Agents Start Roaming the Office
Noah Zelvis
February 20, 2026
AI is about to hand your company a new coworker. Actually, thousands of them.
Little software agents that book meetings, pull data, run reports, deploy code, and touch systems humans barely understand anymore.
That is exciting until you remember one detail: every agent needs access. And access is where breaches are born.
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AI
NVIDIA Goes After India's AI Founders At Day Zero
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) is pushing deeper into India's AI startup scene by partnering with early-stage venture firm Activate, which plans to back 25 to 30 AI startups from a $75 million debut fund.
Portfolio companies get preferential access to Nvidia's technical expertise from the earliest stages of development.
The firm describes itself as focused on inception-stage investing, meeting technical teams months before a company is even formally created.
For Nvidia, the play is simple — build relationships early and lock in future compute customers before they scale.
India's AI Summit Brought The Full Lineup
The partnerships were announced during India's AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, which drew major players including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Alongside the Activate deal, Nvidia expanded ties with Accel, Peak XV, Elevation Capital, and others to identify and fund AI startups.
It also partnered with AI Grants India to support over 10,000 early-stage founders in the next 12 months.
The Long Game Is Compute Demand
NVIDIA already supports over 4,000 Indian startups through its Inception program, but this week's moves add a more curated layer on top.
Growing startups consume more AI compute over time, making early engagement a future revenue funnel.
India is one of the fastest-growing developer markets on the planet. NVIDIA is not waiting for that demand to show up — it is engineering it from the ground up.
Social Platforms
Reddit's AI Search Now Comes With A Buy Link
Reddit (NYSE: RDDT) is testing a new AI-powered search feature that pulls product recommendations from real community discussions and pairs them with shoppable carousels.
A small group of U.S. users will see results that include pricing, images, and direct links to buy from retail partners.
Search something like "best noise-canceling headphones" and the results surface products actually mentioned by users in related threads.
Tap a product to see details, then get redirected to the retailer to complete the purchase.
The Data Advantage Is Already There
Reddit sits on years of organic, detailed product discussions that people already trust more than ads.
Turning that into a shoppable layer gives the platform a native monetization path rather than a forced one.
The company launched Dynamic Product Ads last year and has been steadily building toward this moment.
Weekly search users grew 30% year-over-year to 80 million, and its AI-powered Answers feature jumped from 1 million to 15 million weekly users in under a year.
Late To Shopping, But Playing A Different Game
TikTok and Instagram have had shopping features for years, and ChatGPT added instant checkout from Etsy and Shopify last September.
Reddit is arriving late, but with a unique angle — real user opinions as the recommendation engine.
If the test works, Reddit turns its biggest asset into a revenue machine. Community trust is hard to manufacture, and Reddit already has it at scale.
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Deep Tech
IBM Wants Quantum Value Now, Not Later
IBM (NYSE: IBM) has invested in SQK and QodeX Quantum, two startups from the Duality quantum accelerator program, which are now advancing through the Alchemist Chicago accelerator's first cohort.
Both companies are developing software that applies quantum computing to real-world industry problems rather than conducting theoretical research.
SQK focuses on hybrid quantum-classical algorithms for medical image reconstruction across oncology, cardiovascular, and neuroscience diagnostics.
QodeX Quantum is building a platform that integrates quantum computing directly into machine learning workflows for enterprise analytics.
The Play Is Software, Not Just Hardware
IBM has long maintained that quantum hardware alone will not drive adoption — software is what turns compute into value.
The company continues to develop the open-source Qiskit SDK while investing in startups that bring quantum applications closer to production use.
Both startups get access to IBM's quantum technology, mentorship, and customer networks as part of the deal.
IBM is not just writing checks — it is plugging these companies into its ecosystem early.
Ecosystem Building Before The Market Arrives
Quantum computing is still pre-commercial for most enterprises, but IBM is stacking the deck now.
Each investment in application-layer startups strengthens the case that IBM's quantum stack can deliver business outcomes, not just benchmarks.
The strategy is clear — own the hardware, maintain the open-source tools, and back the startups building on top of them.
When quantum hits enterprise scale, IBM wants every layer running through its orbit.
Trivia: What was the first company to ever advertise on the internet (1994 banner ad)? |
Recent Tech Movers
Workiva (NYSE: WK)
Compliance Gets Hot When Regulators Get Bored
Workiva is the kind of software nobody brags about at parties, but everyone panics about when it breaks.
It helps companies stitch together reporting, risk, controls, and the messy paperwork side of being a public company.
In a world where disclosures, audits, and governance expectations keep piling up, the pitch is pretty clean: reduce spreadsheet chaos, reduce human error, and make the process repeatable.
The AI angle is sneaky here. It is not about robots writing your 10-K like a poet.
It is about automation that reduces time sinks, creates cleaner data trails, and keeps teams from playing telephone across finance, legal, and compliance.
When macro gets noisy and scrutiny rises, software that makes boring things safer can quietly outperform.
Tenable (NASDAQ: TENB)
Your Attack Surface Called, It Wants You to Stop Ignoring It
Tenable lives in the world of exposure management, which is a polite way of saying it helps companies see where they are vulnerable before someone else does.
As IT stacks sprawl across laptops, servers, cloud workloads, containers, and whatever random tool the marketing team signed up for, vulnerability management becomes less like a checklist and more like whack-a-mole.
The market tends to reward Tenable when security budgets feel defensive and steady.
If we are heading into a cycle where boards are asking tougher questions and CISOs are prioritizing visibility and prioritization, this one fits.
The main debate is whether customers treat it as a must-have platform or a line item they can renegotiate.
The good news is nobody wants to be the person who saved 8% on security and then made the front page.
Rapid7 (NASDAQ: RPD)
Messy IT Cleanup, With Alarm Bells Included
Rapid7 sits closer to the action. Think detection, response, and security operations tooling designed for the real world, the one where alerts fire nonstop and teams are understaffed.
If Tenable is the flashlight showing you the cracks, Rapid7 is more like the smoke detector that keeps screaming when something actually catches.
The opportunity is straightforward: companies want fewer tools, better workflows, and faster response.
The risk is also straightforward: the space is crowded, pricing pressure shows up fast, and buyers can be picky.
But in a threat environment where attackers move faster and AI lowers the cost of chaos, security teams keep spending on anything that makes their job less impossible.
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Access Universes For AI Agents
CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR)
The Identity Toll Booth That AI Agents Have to Drive Through
Why This Name Is Working
CyberArk lives in the privileged access universe. That means it helps manage the keys to the kingdom.
Admin credentials, elevated permissions, machine identities, service accounts, the stuff that lets you do real damage if it falls into the wrong hands.
This category used to feel niche. Now it is becoming central, because modern systems run on privileges, not vibes.
The AI agent wave is a gift to this story. More automation usually means more non-human identities. More bots touching sensitive systems.
More machine-to-machine access. And more opportunities for something to go wrong quietly at 3:00 a.m.
Privileged access management is one of the few places in cybersecurity where the stakes keep rising as the enterprise gets more automated.
Scorecard You Can Use
Paid when access expands: More apps, more cloud, more automation equals more credentials to secure.
High pain, high priority: Privileged misuse is a nightmare scenario, which makes this budget harder to cut.
Platform gravity: If a company standardizes here, switching is annoying and risky, which is the best kind of sticky.
Why the Tape Cares
AI agents create identity sprawl: Every agent needs permissions, and permissions need controls.
Breaches are often privilege problems: Attackers love escalation paths. CyberArk is built for that fight.
Security budgets shift to the core: In slowdowns, companies cut experiments first and protect the essentials.
What Could Spook It
Valuation sensitivity: Strong names get punished when growth multiples compress.
Long sales cycles: Big security deals can slip when IT leadership gets cautious.
Competition is real: Plenty of vendors want a slice of identity, and buyers love consolidating.
What to Watch Next
Adoption in machine identity: Any sign this expands beyond humans is a big tell.
Net retention and customer expansion: Are clients adding modules or just renewing?
Tone from CIOs: Identity spend tends to reflect confidence in enterprise IT budgets.
Actionable Take
Builders: Treat it like a core cyber compounder. Add on pullbacks, size it to hold through volatility.
Traders: Respect momentum but do not marry it at the highs. Use levels and risk rules, not emotions.
Bottom Line: If AI agents become normal coworkers, the company selling the keys-and-permissions system may stay in demand.
Everything Else
🤖 Alibaba just dropped a new Qwen agent model, basically saying my agent can beat up your agent in the parking lot after school.
🎙️ Apple is making a real push into video podcasting, trying to snag creators before YouTube’s grip tightens any further.
🎬 ByteDance is rolling out fresh safeguards for its AI video tools, hoping it can keep the magic while avoiding copyright chaos from Hollywood’s legal Avengers.
🦾 China’s humanoid robots are getting their Lunar New Year spotlight, because nothing says celebration like robot pageantry and a slightly uncanny moonwalk.
💼 Infosys says AI services drove a big chunk of Q3 revenue, proving once again that AI billing is the hottest product in enterprise software.
That's our coverage for today; thanks for reading! Reply to this email with feedback or any tech stocks you want me to check out.
Best Regards,
—Noah Zelvis
Tech Stock Insider