Prediction: These 2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks Will Soar After Feb. 26 (Hint: Not Nvidia)
As the calendar flips past the monumental earnings release from the foundational hardware giant on February 25th, investor attention is poised to pivot sharply to two distinct yet equally critical segments of the Artificial Intelligence revolution. The date, February 26, 2026, is penciled in for the financial disclosures of two dynamic players: a powerhouse in AI infrastructure enablement and a pure-play leader in agentic voice applications. While the market has, for years, been captivated by the chipmakers, the next significant repricing event is expected to originate from companies successfully translating massive, contracted potential into verifiable, accelerating revenue reality. The scrutiny on this day will be intense, focusing on metrics that confirm the sustainability and acceleration of their respective growth stories.
Financial Underpinnings and Valuation Reassessment
Both companies, which can be identified as the specialized cloud provider CoreWeave (CRWV) and the voice AI specialist SoundHound AI (SOUN), are operating in vastly different parts of the AI value chain, yet share a common thread in their immediate financial catalysts: the conversion of immense market opportunity into contracted, billable reality. Investors are moving past the initial speculation phase and demanding confirmation of unit economics and scalable deployment.
Analyzing CoreWeave’s Path to Profitability Amidst Expansion
For the infrastructure enabler, CoreWeave, the current focus remains firmly on aggressive capacity build-out—a necessary precursor to long-term market dominance in the era of unprecedented AI training demand. Investors, however, are becoming increasingly interested in the margin profile of the secured revenue. The company has already demonstrated impressive gross margins on its existing capacity utilization, with Q3 2025 revenue soaring 134% year-over-year.
The key narrative to watch for on February 26th is the commentary on how the new, more efficient data centers, particularly those incorporating the latest hardware and advanced cooling solutions, will impact the overall blended gross margin as they are brought online throughout 2026. The market seeks confirmation that scale is leading to margin accretion, despite the heavy upfront investment required to maintain leadership in this capital-intensive sector.
The financial scaffolding supporting this expansion is substantial. CoreWeave’s revenue backlog was reported at an astounding $56 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2025, representing a massive 271% year-over-year increase. Analysts project 2026 revenue to potentially exceed $12 billion, more than doubling the $5 billion guided for 2025. Yet, the challenge remains the path to profitability; while revenue growth is the fuel, the company has yet to achieve consistent net income. The market is keenly aware that the current valuation, trading on a Price-to-Sales (P/S) multiple that some models deem low relative to its growth trajectory (e.g., Fair Ratio estimate of 27.31x versus current 11.55x), hinges on successfully navigating its significant debt load while scaling infrastructure. A strong report confirming capacity execution against the $55.6 billion backlog would be a profound validation.
SoundHound AI’s Milestone: Achieving Sustainable Revenue Velocity
For the voice AI specialist, SoundHound AI, the central financial story is escaping the perception of a long-term bet and proving itself as a near-term revenue accelerator. The expected growth is significant: while Q3 2025 revenue growth decelerated slightly, year-over-year growth in the trailing twelve months ending Q1 2026 was 120.52%, significantly outpacing the industry average. The consensus estimates for 2026 hover around $234 million in revenue, a pace that follows a dramatic growth phase in the preceding year.
The second step beyond top-line growth is providing assurances that the cost structure associated with delivering that revenue is favorable. Success in the coming quarter will involve demonstrating that the cost of acquiring and servicing new agentic AI customers is creating a favorable lifetime value to customer acquisition cost (LTV/CAC) ratio, signaling an efficient and scalable sales engine. SoundHound AI has been aggressively managing its cost base. By the end of Q3 2025, non-GAAP gross margin reached 59%, and management noted that growth at the current scale was beginning to “fully cover” operating costs. The integration of recent acquisitions, such as Amelia, is expected to contribute synergy-driven efficiencies as workloads migrate to SoundHound’s proprietary cloud infrastructure.
The market is looking for a clear articulation of the path to operational profitability. While the company aims for a “breakeven profitability profile” heading into 2026, the current valuation multiple (around 16.8x forward revenue as of early 2026) reflects high expectations that must be met for the stock to sustain its premium position among pure-play AI application companies. Confirmation of sticky, recurring SaaS revenues and successful enterprise integration will be the primary signals that the market is willing to continue paying a premium for their defensible intellectual property.
The Multiplier Effect: Earnings Surprise and Guidance Upgrades
The market’s reaction on the day following these disclosures—February 26th—is expected to be disproportionately large if either company delivers a substantial surprise. This surge is often less about the actual earnings per share (or the remaining EPS loss in SoundHound’s case) and more about the confidence instilled in the forward guidance provided by management.
For CoreWeave, a strong beat, coupled with an upward revision to the full-year 2026 revenue projections beyond the current $12 billion expectation, would force analysts to rapidly adjust models, triggering a significant repricing event. The potential for a “short squeeze” is high, particularly following recent stock volatility related to financing concerns. Similarly, for SoundHound AI, a significant upward revision to future-looking subscription commitments or a clear pathway map to adjusted EBITDA profitability that exceeds current expectations would catalyze a rapid re-evaluation of its risk profile. This compounding effect—where beats drive higher guidance, which in turn drives multiple expansion—is what ultimately drives the stock’s potential to “soar.”
Synthesis of Post-Catalyst Market Momentum
The convergence of these two distinct, yet mutually reinforcing, segments of the AI growth story—infrastructure enablement and advanced application deployment—creates a powerful macro environment for these two stocks following the scheduled disclosures. The market narrative is poised to evolve from focusing solely on the foundational hardware sellers to a more balanced appreciation of the entire, flourishing ecosystem that is rapidly coming online in 2026.
The Infrastructure Security Thesis Post-February Twenty-Sixth
For CoreWeave, the confirmation of continued, robust demand for dedicated, high-performance AI compute, as evidenced by their backlog conversion and capital expenditure absorption, will solidify its status as an essential utility for the entire AI industry. The market will likely begin to price in the successful execution of the multi-year infrastructure build-out plans that recent strategic partnerships, including a major equity investment from Nvidia in January 2026, have secured. This execution future-proofs their revenue streams, moving them from a purely speculative growth stock to a more established, albeit still high-growth, infrastructure anchor in the new digital economy. The resulting investor confidence is expected to manifest in a significant upward re-rating of their Price-to-Sales multiple, justifying a valuation closer to the modeled “Fair Ratio”. Furthermore, as the scarcity of electricity replaces the scarcity of silicon as the primary bottleneck in 2026, CoreWeave’s ability to secure power—as potentially underscored by commentary on the new GRID Act legislation—becomes a key differentiator.
The Voice AI Market Share Capture Confirmation
For SoundHound AI, the report is anticipated to be the definitive moment where the market recognizes that the shift to agentic systems is happening now, and that they possess a commercially viable, scalable solution beyond basic command-and-control voice tasks. Strong revenue performance, coupled with management’s commitment to aggressive market capture across its total addressable market of $140 billion spanning multiple industries, will likely shift institutional sentiment from cautious observation to aggressive accumulation. This validates the narrative that specialized AI application platforms, when differentiated by proprietary models and successful enterprise integration, can outgrow the broader market, commanding premium multiples based on defensible intellectual property. The successful demonstration of favorable unit economics (LTV/CAC) confirms that this specialized software layer is building a defensible moat that is not entirely dependent on the cyclical hardware CAPEX supercycle.
The Broader Market Implications Beyond the Two Picks
Ultimately, the performance of these two stocks following the February 26th disclosures serves as a vital barometer for the health of the AI spending cycle outside the largest, most capitalized players. While hyperscalers guided for capital expenditures exceeding $700 billion in 2026, the success of CoreWeave and SoundHound AI validates the spending trickle-down effect to specialized vendors. If both CoreWeave and SoundHound AI deliver catalysts that send their stocks significantly higher, it signals a broadening, healthier, and more mature investment cycle in Artificial Intelligence, where specialized infrastructure and application layers are commanding their deserved premiums. This movement will likely draw more capital into other specialized, yet-to-be-discovered AI innovators, creating a positive feedback loop for the entire sector. The twenty-sixth of this month, therefore, is less about two individual reports and more about the confirmation of the sustained, multi-faceted revolution in processing and intelligence that defines this era. The stage is set for a profound recalibration of investor focus and capital allocation in the days immediately following the disclosures.
