Benchmark raised its price target on Snowflake to $200 on May 19 while keeping a Buy rating, saying it expects product revenue and operating income to come in above market expectations.
The upgrade came just four days after RBC Capital reduced its price target on Snowflake from $245 to $220 on May 15 but maintained an Outperform rating, calling the company’s outlook “tricky but favorable.”
Those two moves, taken together, are the clearest evidence yet that Wall Street sees Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud platform as the hinge for the company’s next quarter. Benchmark flagged Snowflake Intelligence, Cortex Code and Observe as specific products helping drive AI adoption across over 9,000 accounts and said cloud consumption and generative AI workloads should support increased usage of the platform.
RBC’s note, however, did more than lower a target price. The firm signaled caution alongside optimism, saying its checks show growing adoption of Cortex Code and that strong demand could let Snowflake deliver strong first-quarter results with no deceleration to modest acceleration in product revenue. That assessment helps explain why RBC kept an Outperform rating even as it trimmed the numeric target.
Benchmark’s action is numerically smaller but tone-wise firmer: a lift from $190 to $200 plus an unchanged Buy rating. Benchmark explicitly tied the change to expectations that product revenue and operating income will exceed market estimates and to the company’s traction with AI-focused tools and consumption patterns.
Put simply, analysts are betting that AI workloads will translate into measurable gains for Snowflake’s cloud business. The firms point to the same evidence—adoption of Cortex Code, usage of Snowflake Intelligence and Observe, and heavy cloud consumption driven by generative AI—but they are drawing different conclusions about how to value that momentum right now.
Context matters. These analyst adjustments landed ahead of Snowflake’s upcoming earnings report, and they come against the backdrop of Snowflake’s positioning as an American cloud-based data platform company that offers an AI Data Cloud to help organizations build, use and share data, applications and AI. The price-target changes are the market’s short-term read on whether that positioning is translating into higher revenue and profitability.
The tension in the story is the gap between tone and math. Both Benchmark and RBC point to similar operational strengths—broad account penetration and product-specific adoption—but one firm raised its target while the other cut it. Benchmark’s move implies confidence that AI-driven consumption will outpace expectations; RBC’s cut suggests the path to that upside is narrower or riskier than earlier projected, even while the firm still expects favorable outcomes.
What happens next is straightforward and consequential: Snowflake’s next quarter results will test both theses. If product revenue and operating income beat street estimates as Benchmark expects, the stock’s upward potential will find clearer footing. If results only meet or fall short of estimates, RBC’s caution about a tricky outlook will look prescient and could reset near-term expectations.
Either way, the market is looking for proof that the technical details—how many of Snowflake’s more than 9,000 accounts expand usage of AI Data Cloud services, and whether generative AI workloads convert into sustained cloud consumption—actually move the company’s top and bottom lines. The upcoming report will be the first real signal that analysts’ differing price-target adjustments were based on more than optimism about AI trends.
