Microsoft helped lift Wall Street Friday after introducing new capabilities in Copilot, including a coding tool and an always-on AI agent. Reuters’ closing report put Microsoft’s gain at 3.7%. Dell and Qualcomm also advanced.
Akamai supplied a separate company-specific development: an $11.6 billion cloud-services agreement with Anthropic. Its shares rose 3.2%, Reuters reported. The two stories addressed different parts of the AI investment chain—software distribution at Microsoft and contracted infrastructure demand at Akamai.
The advance did not remove the week’s concerns about elevated oil and Treasury yields. Instead, investors received identifiable corporate developments to weigh against those pressures. That is different from a rally explained only by a broad improvement in sentiment.
Neither announcement alone answers the full earnings question. A new software capability must attract adoption and support attractive economics. A multiyear infrastructure agreement must turn into delivered service, collected revenue and an acceptable return on the capacity required. Friday gave investors more to investigate, not a reason to stop investigating.
Selected closing moves
Percent change; September 25, 2026
Read chart data as a table
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Microsoft | 3.7 |
| Akamai | 3.2 |
| Qualcomm | 4 |
| Dell | 5 |