Numerous software stocks were standout performers on Friday, as investors dumped chip stocks and assessed the implications of OpenAI’s reported struggles.

On Thursday, the New York Times reported that OpenAI may hold off on an initial public offering until next year, partly due to financial challenges. The report offered a sign that artificial intelligence might not be the death sentence for software that it’s been feared by some to be.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The dynamic cut across the software sector unequally on Friday, however. For instance, ServiceNow and Workday shares were up more than 9% and among the strongest performers in the S&P 500 on the day. Shares of Figma and Datadog closed up by more than 10% and 8%, respectively. And shares of Adobe and Salesforce each ended up 5%.

Raymond James analyst Adam Tindle said that while day-to-day stock moves can be hard to unpack, some of Friday’s biggest outperformers were those once perceived to be especially threatened by AI, such as ServiceNow and Atlassian.

Meanwhile, shares of Oracle — which has a $300 billion cloud-computing deal with OpenAI — closed down 3% on Friday.

Morningstar analyst Luke Yang told MarketWatch that news of OpenAI’s IPO delay was the main factor impacting Oracle’s stock performance. Such a delay would be “good news for the application side, but bad news for the cloud-infrastructure side,” he said.

In other words, Oracle’s cloud applications, like its enterprise resource-planning offerings, could benefit if the OpenAI threat diminishes — but other parts of the company’s business are more linked to OpenAI’s success, given the massive cloud deal between the companies.

In fiscal 2026, Oracle’s cloud revenues increased 39% from the previous year to $34 billion, while its software revenues were down 1% to $24.5 billion. This illustrates how cloud infrastructure has become more important to Oracle’s overall direction.

Yang noted that neocloud and cloud-infrastructure companies like CoreWeave and Nebius Group suffered on Friday, with shares of the two companies ending down 2% and 6%, respectively.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Rishi Jaluria told MarketWatch that while sentiment is still very negative on software, “peak negativity may be in the rearview mirror.”

He said that while investors may still be “questioning the growth algorithm” of the industry, “widespread stories about enterprises replacing every software solution with AI aren’t reality.”