Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Cognizant Shares Ride on AI Deployment, Expanding Partner Base

Read MoreHide Full Article

Key Takeaways

  • Cognizant shares climbed 9.8% in a month, outpacing the broader tech sector's 1.1% rise.
  • CTSH's AI investments, partner expansion, and cost discipline lifted margins in Q3 2025.
  • Cognizant projects 2025 revenues of up to $21.1B.

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH - Free Report) shares have rallied  9.8% over the past month compared with the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s appreciation of 1.1%. The Zacks Computers-IT Services industry has declined 2.3% during the aforementioned period. 

CTSH is benefiting from investments in AI, a strong clientele and an expanding partner base. In the third quarter of 2025, Cognizant inked six large deals with total control value (TCV) of $100 million or more, which brought the year-to-date total to 16. Cognizant’s operating margin (up 70 basis points year over year in the third quarter of 2025) is benefiting from disciplined spending as well as an increasingly AI-enabled delivery model. CTSH expects 2025 adjusted operating margin to be approximately 15.7%, indicating an increase of 40 basis points from the 2024 level.

Cognizant’s expanding partner base that includes the likes of Anthropic, Rubrik (RBRK - Free Report) , Pearson and others has been a key catalyst. The company is integrating Anthropic’s tools, including Claude for Enterprise, Claude Code, Model Context Protocol (“MCP”) and Agent SDK. This integration will help clients embed AI into their existing data and applications, enabling them to manage performance, risk, and spending more effectively.

Cognizant and Rubrik announced an expanded partnership to provide Business Resilience-as-a-Service (BRaaS) for mutual customers, designed to help clients quickly recover from cyber incidents and ransomware attacks, without hurting critical business outcomes.

Expanding AI Ecosystem Bodes Well for CTSH’s Prospects

The Anthropic deal expands Cognizant’s AI ecosystem. CTSH plans to deploy Anthropic's cloud models and agentic tools with its own platforms to help clients scale AI. CTSH also plans to use claude to advance its own operations. The company’s AI builder strategy focuses on AI-led productivity, industrializing AI and agentifying the enterprise.

AI-led productivity is driving digital transformation for enterprises. CTSH’s developers’ productivity improved in the third quarter of 2025 as roughly 30% of its internal code was AI-generated, which Cognizant expects to reach 50% in the years ahead. Cognizant has embedded AI across more than 150 use cases from finance and operations to sales enablement and contract pricing that streamlines decision-making, improves accuracy and accelerates cycle times.

Cognizant’s Flowsource platform, which integrates generative and agentic AI across the full software development life cycle, is gaining traction, with more than 70 clients and 120 more in the pipeline. Pearson is one of the clients using Flowsource to modernize its learning platforms, products and applications.

CTSH Offers Positive Guidance

Cognizant’s strong portfolio, along with an expanding partner base, is expected to drive top-line growth in the near term. The company expects fourth-quarter 2025 revenues to be between $5.27 billion and $5.33 billion, indicating growth of 3.8-4.8% and an increase of 2.5-3.5% on a cc basis.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fourth-quarter 2025 revenues is pegged at $5.31 billion, indicating year-over-year growth of 4.43%. The consensus mark for earnings is pegged at $1.32 per share, which has increased a penny over the past 30 days. The figure implies a year-over-year increase of 9.09%.

CTSH expects 2025 revenues to be between $21.05 billion and $21.10 billion, indicating growth of 6.6-6.9% on a reported basis and 6-6.3% on a constant currency basis. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 revenues is pegged at $21.06 billion, indicating year-over-year growth of 6.70%. The consensus mark for 2025 earnings is pegged at $5.25 per share, which has increased a dime over the past 30 days. The figure implies a year-over-year increase of 10.53%.

Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to Consider

Cognizant currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

A couple of other top-ranked stocks from the industry are Fair Isaac (FICO - Free Report) and Vertiv (VRT - Free Report) , each currently sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Long-term earnings growth rate for Fair Isaac and Vertiv is currently pegged at 26.8% and 29.96%, respectively. Shares of Fair Isaac and Vertiv have appreciated 6.4% and 4.9%, respectively, over the past month.

Published in