Goldman Sachs thinks investors may still be underestimating one of the smaller winners emerging from corporate artificial intelligence spending.
Analyst Callie Valenti upgraded Zeta Global (ZETA) from Neutral to Buy and raised her 12-month price target from $30 to $45. Valenti said that businesses are increasingly substituting platforms that integrate consumer data, insight, and campaign execution for fragmented marketing tools.
Zeta closed at $31.81 on Oct. 16, putting Goldman’s new target roughly 41% above the stock price. The call is notable because Zeta shares have already rallied sharply in 2026. Goldman is turning bullish after the run rather than waiting for a pullback.
Goldman projects Zeta’s 2027 revenue and earnings before interest and taxes to be 3% and 5% higher than the Wall Street consensus, respectively, according to Investing.com.
Additionally, the investment case goes beyond traditional advertising software. While its most recent offerings dive deeper into autonomous corporate software, Zeta maintains ties with Palantir (PLTR), OpenAI, and Snowflake (SNOW).
In essence, Goldman is wagering that corporate AI expenditures will shift from infrastructure to apps that provide quantifiable economic outcomes.
Goldman sees Zeta taking business from older platforms
Zeta assists big businesses in gathering consumer data, analyzing behavior, and selecting which offers, communications, or ads to deliver.
According to Goldman, companies are becoming more and more interested in combining those services rather of paying for a variety of disparate goods. Because Zeta encompasses consumer data, marketing activation, and measurement, Valenti views it as unique.
Additionally, the underlying company has been expanding rapidly.
Zeta generated $443 million in second-quarter revenue, up 44% from a year earlier. It posted $8 million of generally accepted accounting principles net income and $92 million of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
At $58 million, free cash flow rose by 73%.
The company also raised its full-year revenue outlook to between $1.811 billion and $1.824 billion, representing roughly 39% to 40% growth.
At the end of the quarter, Zeta had 197 clients with trailing 12-month sales of at least $1 million, up 17% from the same period last year. Additionally, the average income from those clients rose by 17% to $1.8 million.
For Goldman’s view, it is crucial. Zeta doesn’t only need additional clients. Large businesses must add more of their marketing infrastructure on their platform.
So far, that seems to be happening.
“We expect upside to numbers could drive continued outperformance,” said Valenti.
Goldman sees one overlooked beneficiary of corporate AI spending.
Zeta’s Palantir partnership could open a bigger market
Goldman also highlighted Zeta’s partnership with Palantir as a potential route into larger enterprise contracts.
In June, Zeta and Palantir announced that Zeta’s Data Cloud will be rebuilt on Palantir Foundry, linking marketing choices and consumer data with operational data that businesses already handle via Palantir.
Zeta CEO David Steinberg said the partnership could eventually generate more than $100 million in annual revenue for Zeta. That is a company target, not a guaranteed outcome.
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With AthenaOS, which it calls an enterprise intelligence system, Zeta advanced the plan this month.
A user can give AthenaOS a business goal and let it gather data, intelligence, and actions to achieve it without switching applications. The product begins with marketing and expands to other business functions.
This is why Goldman views spending for artificial intelligence as a boon rather than just another feature of a product.
Zeta is attempting to go from assisting businesses in sending ads to assisting them in determining which consumers to target, what action to take, and if that action was successful.
Both the potential and the execution risk are substantial. Instead of just experimenting with such items, Zeta still has to demonstrate that businesses will pay significant sums for them.
Goldman’s $45 target raises the execution bar
Goldman is not the only bank becoming more upbeat.
KeyBanc recently raised its target to $38, Needham moved to $40, and Roth Capital lifted its target to $55, according to recent analyst-rating data.
However, Zeta is no longer an unknown stock.
Because of its increase, expectations are stronger, which makes further profit gains more crucial. Additionally, the corporation employs significant stock-based compensation, continues to be acquisitive, and competes with bigger software firms.
During the first six months of 2026, Zeta generated $118.9 million in operating cash flow while recording roughly $105 million in stock-based compensation, according to its quarterly filing.
Investors are then presented with a rather simple exam.
For Zeta to generate bigger contracts, the Palantir collaboration is essential. AthenaOS must stop being an outstanding demonstration and start becoming a paid product. Revenue growth must continue to be robust enough to support the stock’s run, and current consumers must continue to spend more.
The benefit is that Zeta doesn’t have to directly compete with Nvidia or construct billion-dollar data centers.
Businesses must leverage AI to make better consumer choices and pay Zeta for the infrastructure that makes those decisions possible.
The AI investment cycle may progressively go in that direction.
The first stage rewarded companies selling computing power. The next stage has to prove businesses can turn that computing power into measurable economic value.
Zeta may be able to catch a portion of that transition, according to Goldman. The bank is wagering that if it succeeds, investors still have about 41% more potential at $45.
Related: Goldman Sachs resets Palantir Stock 12-month price target by 18%
