AI Stocks Power Wall Street Rally Amid Oil Price Concerns

Wall Street finished Friday on a high note, driven by Microsoft and other AI-related stocks. The software giant's recent unveiling of several new capabilities in its Copilot app, including a coding tool and an always-on AI agent, sent shares soaring by 3.7%. This lifted Microsoft's year-to-date gain to 7%.

Akamai Technologies also made significant gains after announcing an $11.6 billion cloud services deal with AI leader Anthropic. The agreement includes a warrant that could give Anthropic up to 5% of Akamai.

However, not all tech companies fared well. Meta Platforms dipped 3.3%, despite its stock rising about 13% this week following the strong reception to its Muse AI agent.