TNB Tech Minute: Software and Chip Stocks Surge

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Julie Chang** (0:31)
Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, August 27th. I'm Julie Chang for the Wall Street Journal. Software and semiconductor stocks are surging following stellar earnings reports from Salesforce, CrowdStrike and NVIDIA this week. Salesforce is up about 22 percent. The software giant said it's deepening its partnership with Anthropic, boosting investor confidence about its ability to integrate AI into its software. CrowdStrike is up about 19.5 percent. The cybersecurity provider lifted its guidance as AI security risks are elevating demand. Okta and Adobe are among the software providers riding the wave. Their shares have risen almost 29 percent and 6 percent respectively.
Semiconductors and chips are also riding on NVIDIA's tailcoat. The company reported an astonishing 70 percent annual revenue growth guidance. Broadcom is up more than 3.5 percent, while Intel is up 2.4 percent.
Best Buy raised its full year outlook following higher second quarter results that beat both the company's own forecasts and Wall Street expectations. Executives noted that customer response to price markdowns remained strong, with continued demand for higher end products despite economic pressures. Best Buy increased its annual revenue forecast to over $42 billion, about a billion more than previously estimated.
And Cisco gave all of its global workforce of 90,000 employees their own AI agent. The executive VP of Operations at the Networking Equipment Maker told the journal in an exclusive interview that the move aims to consolidate the company's internal AI tools. This deployment represents one of the first examples of widespread agent rollout inside a large company. AI agents have become more powerful and capable of performing different tasks, from writing code to customer support and analyzing financial data. And agent adoption has also been growing among businesses. But there are still plenty of rollout challenges tech leaders are grappling with, including cybersecurity risks and token costs.
For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Friday's Tech News Briefing podcast.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:41)
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