According to CNBC, Rosenblatt Securities analyst Barton Crockett called Meta’s acquisition of Singapore-based AI agent developer Manus a “rocket ship growth story” and a “great deal,” potentially as transformative as Instagram or WhatsApp. While financial terms weren’t disclosed, The Wall Street Journal reported the deal was worth over $2 billion. Meta plans to sell Manus’s digital assistant service and integrate its tech into offerings like Meta AI. Separately, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives named Microsoft, Apple, and CrowdStrike among his top five stocks to play the AI revolution into 2026, maintaining bullish price targets that imply upsides of 26% to 40% from current levels. Rosenblatt reaffirmed a $1,117 price target on Meta, suggesting 70% upside.
Meta Bets Big on Business AI
Here’s the thing about Meta’s Manus play: it’s not just about a cool new AI toy. It’s a direct monetization shot for WhatsApp. For years, everyone’s asked how Meta would really make money from the messaging giant beyond a few business fees. Crockett’s argument that Manus “fits really beautifully” into WhatsApp’s SMB footprint is the key. Think of it as embedding super-powered customer service and sales agents directly into the chat streams where small businesses already operate. That’s a sticky, utility-driven use case. But is it a $2-billion-dollar-good idea? Maybe. Meta’s aggressive poaching of AI talent for its TBD labs unit shows they’re serious about the underlying tech, and pulling back on metaverse spending gives them dry powder. This feels less like a moonshot and more like a strategic trench-digging operation around their most ubiquitous platform.
The Wedbush Triumvirate for 2026
Wedbush’s picks aren’t shocking, but their rationale highlights the different lanes in the AI race. Microsoft’s story is about cloud dominance. The claim that Wall Street is “underestimating” Azure’s AI growth is bold, but when you own the platform where a huge chunk of enterprise AI is being built and run, your fate is pretty intertwined. 2026 as the “true inflection year” makes sense—that’s when all those early pilot projects either scale or die.
Apple’s situation is the messiest, and Wedbush basically admits it, calling this year’s strategy “head-scratching.” Their entire thesis hinges on that massive, loyal installed base. It’s the classic “Apple is late but will nail it” argument. Adding $75-$100 per share in value from AI monetization is a huge claim. It assumes Apple can create must-have, paid-for AI features that are deeply integrated into iOS. Can they? They’ve done it before with hardware, but software services are a different game.
Then there’s CrowdStrike. This is the most fascinating angle because AI is a double-edged sword in cybersecurity. As CEO George Kurtz said, AI lets anyone “vibe hack,” creating more sophisticated threats. But that, perversely, is the sales pitch. It’s a self-perpetuating demand cycle: better AI attacks require better AI defense, which CrowdStrike sells. Calling it a “second/third derivative beneficiary” is a fancy way of saying the worse things get, the better they do.
The Common Thread and The Caveats
So what’s the link between a social media giant, a cloud behemoth, a hardware legend, and a cybersecurity leader? They all have massive, established distribution networks. Meta has WhatsApp businesses. Microsoft has Azure and Office. Apple has a billion-plus devices. CrowdStrike has its sprawling platform. Their AI strategy isn’t about inventing the smartest model from scratch; it’s about deploying applied AI at scale through channels they already control. That’s a huge advantage over pure-play AI startups.
But let’s pump the brakes on the price targets for a second. A $1,117 Meta? That’s a towering number that bakes in near-perfect execution on Manus and everything else. These analyst notes are inherently bullish—that’s their job. The real test for 2026 won’t be the vision, but the numbers: actual AI-driven revenue growth in Azure’s earnings reports, tangible uptake of Apple’s AI features, and the deal size expansion for CrowdStrike. The narrative is set. Now we wait for the data.
