Barclays upgraded Okta (OKTA) to Overweight from Equal Weight on Monday, raising its price target to $90 from $85, citing agentic AI adoption as a direct catalyst for enterprise identity security spending, according to CNBC. The $90 target implies 24.6% upside from Friday’s close. Okta shares rose approximately 4.3% on the upgrade.
Barclays analyst Saket Kalia identified three drivers behind the rating change: strengthened CIO survey metrics, positive mid-quarter business assessments, and a developing market opportunity within agentic security solutions, according to Blockonomi.
Identity Tops CIO Spending Priorities
The firm’s latest CIO survey positioned identity management as the top security investment priority for the second consecutive quarter, per Blockonomi. Okta’s ranking among leading security vendors climbed to sixth place, a significant rebound from its 2022–2023 position near the bottom of the survey.
Kalia noted that identity management is becoming a top cybersecurity priority as AI agents operate at scale and require governance comparable to human identities, according to ainvest. Every autonomous agent needs credentials, scoped permissions, audit trails, and lifecycle management. That creates a recurring demand profile that maps directly onto Okta’s platform.
Agentic Security Contract Wins
Barclays highlighted early six-figure contract wins in Okta’s emerging agentic security category, per Blockonomi. The firm also pointed to limited product availability in the agentic identity space as a potential catalyst for further deal wins for Okta, per ainvest.
Raymond James simultaneously upgraded OKTA to Outperform, reinforcing the bullish consensus around identity security as an agentic AI play.
The Broader Spending Picture
The upgrade aligns with a broader Wall Street view that agent infrastructure is becoming a durable revenue category. JPMorgan Chase recently projected global cybersecurity spending to reach $240 billion in 2026, with AI-related cybersecurity expected to grow at a faster pace, according to ainvest.
The logic is straightforward. A company running 50 AI agents needs the same identity infrastructure it would need for 50 new employees: authentication, authorization, session management, anomaly detection. Except agents don’t go home at 6 PM, and they can be spun up or down in seconds. That velocity creates both demand and complexity that benefits platforms purpose-built for identity at scale.