TLDR
- Barclays upgraded Okta (OKTA) from Equalweight to Overweight, raising its price target to $90 from $85
- Identity security ranked as the #1 enterprise spending priority in Barclays’ latest CIO survey
- Okta climbed to 6th among top security vendors, up from near the bottom in 2022ā2023
- The bank flagged Okta’s agentic security opportunity, noting early six-figure wins from agentic products
- Raymond James also upgraded OKTA to Outperform, adding to the positive momentum
Okta had a strong Monday. The identity security company saw its stock climb around 4.3% after Barclays lifted its rating and Wall Street warmed further to its growth story.
Barclays analyst Saket Kalia moved Okta from Equalweight to Overweight and bumped the price target to $90 from $85. The stock was trading around $72.25 before the move, so the new target implies meaningful upside.
Kalia pointed to three things driving the upgrade: improved survey data, better intra-quarter business checks, and an emerging opportunity in agentic security.
The bank’s CIO survey, published the same day, ranked identity as the top security spending priority for the second survey in a row. That’s a strong signal for Okta’s core business.
Okta’s vendor ranking has also climbed. It now sits sixth among top security vendors overall ā a sharp recovery from near the bottom in 2022 and 2023, when the company was dealing with the fallout from a data breach.
Identity Is Now the Biggest Security Sub-Segment
According to IDC data cited by Barclays, identity is now the largest sub-segment in cybersecurity, growing at roughly 19% compound annual growth rate off a $28 billion base. That’s a big market, and Okta sits squarely in the middle of it.
Intra-quarter checks also improved. Kalia noted healthier underlying demand, stronger channel engagement, and better execution since Okta reorganized its sales force across its Workforce and Auth0 products last year.
The $90 price target is based on a raised fiscal year 2028 free cash flow estimate of $991 million. Barclays said Okta’s exposure across multiple identity sub-markets gives it “multiple durable legs of growth.”
Agentic Security: A New Growth Driver
One of the more interesting parts of the Barclays note is the focus on AI agents. As companies deploy more autonomous AI systems, someone has to manage who ā or what ā those agents are allowed to access.
Barclays posed the question directly: “We wonder if protecting agents is fundamentally an identity problem.”
Okta has already started picking up early wins here. The company secured six-figure deals from its agentic products last quarter, even with limited availability.
“We think it’s a rising tide, and believe Okta will be a beneficiary,” Kalia wrote.
The upgrade from Barclays wasn’t alone. Raymond James also upgraded Okta to Outperform, citing the company’s early lead in securing AI agents and its broader “secure agentic enterprise” strategy.
BMO Capital previously raised its price target on Okta to $97, and Cantor Fitzgerald has maintained an Overweight rating following strong Q4 fiscal 2026 results.
Those results beat consensus on revenue, operating margin, earnings per share, and current remaining performance obligations.
Despite Monday’s rally, Okta is still down around 22% year-to-date. Analyst price targets range from $75 to $140, and its market cap sits at roughly $11.9 billion.
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