Paycom, AppLovin, Braze, Salesforce, and Elastic Shares Plummet, What You Need To Know

Anthony Lee

Wed, February 18, 2026 at 6:01 AM GMT+9 3 min read

In this article:

•                                       StockStory Top Pick 
  

  APP

  -3.66%

 ESTC  

 -1.84%  

 

 

 PAYC  

 -2.39%  

 

 

 BRZE  

 -3.81%  

 

 

 CRM  

 -2.86%  

What Happened?

A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after investor fears over artificial intelligence disrupting the software industry sparked a broad sell-off. The anxiety stemmed from the rapid adoption of new ‘agentic AI’ tools, which some investors believed could dismantle traditional Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business models. This ‘AI Panic’ led to indiscriminate selling across the sector. The market move reflected growing concerns about the downside of the AI boom for established software companies.

The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.

Among others, the following stocks were impacted:

HR Software company Paycom (NYSE:PAYC) fell 2.9%. Is now the time to buy Paycom? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

Advertising Software company AppLovin (NASDAQ:APP) fell 2.6%. Is now the time to buy AppLovin? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

Marketing Software company Braze (NASDAQ:BRZE) fell 3.2%. Is now the time to buy Braze? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

Sales Software company Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) fell 3%. Is now the time to buy Salesforce? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

Data Infrastructure company Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) fell 2.9%. Is now the time to buy Elastic? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

Zooming In On Braze (BRZE)

Braze’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 35 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.

The previous big move we wrote about was 12 days ago when the stock dropped 7.2% on the news that the “AI replacement” narrative reached a fever pitch following the release of new models from Anthropic and OpenAI. The simultaneous debut of Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 and OpenAI’s “Frontier” agent platform raised concerns that autonomous agents are no longer just tools, but new operating systems that can cannibalize traditional software. This suggests that specialized applications might be reduced to mere features within frontier models, rendering legacy seat-based licensing models increasingly obsolete. The catalyst is the models’ unprecedented agentic power. Opus 4.6’s “software hunting” capability allows it to autonomously audit and patch complex codebases, while OpenAI’s Frontier platform bypasses traditional CRM and ticketing interfaces to perform enterprise work directly. By commoditizing sophisticated workflows into low-cost API calls, these releases threaten the recurring revenue of software giants. As AI builds bespoke tools on demand, the market is aggressively repricing the entire software application layer.

Story Continues  

Braze is down 48% since the beginning of the year, and at $16.93 per share, it is trading 59.6% below its 52-week high of $41.85 from February 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Braze’s shares at the IPO in November 2021 would now be looking at an investment worth $181.23.

While Wall Street chases Nvidia at all-time highs, an under-the-radar semiconductor supplier is dominating a critical AI component these giants can’t build without. Click here to access our full research report, it’s free.

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