This weekly update reveals a trading market caught between two very different feelings about artificial intelligence. Early in the week, investors showed concern about how AI might change the job market and business operations. On Friday, February 13, 2026, this worry turned into real market action, with a significant global stock market selloff driven by AI fears.

The numbers tell the story clearly. The S&P 500 index dropped 1.57%, putting the market into negative territory for the year. Technology stocks were hit hardest, with the Nasdaq Composite falling 2%. But the worry spread beyond just tech companies. The software sector has fallen 27% since October as traders fear that AI will replace software makers. Markets across Asia also experienced losses, with Japan's Nikkei 225 down 1.21% and China's CSI 300 down 1.25%. Even gold, which is normally considered a safe place to put money during scary times, fell sharply.

What's interesting is that the AI worry spread to unexpected places. A small company called Algorhythm Holdings announced that its AI platform helped trucking customers move 300 to 400 percent more freight without hiring more workers. This single announcement caused the entire trucking industry stock index to fall 6.64%. In commercial real estate, major company CBRE dropped 8.84% after its leader mentioned that AI might reduce the need for office space. These examples show how traders were interpreting any AI news as a sign that jobs would disappear.

However, not all experts agree that this selling was correct. Many Wall Street analysts suggested that the market reaction was too extreme. They pointed out that AI should actually help companies make more money by doing more work with the same number of employees. Research teams looked at actual employment numbers in industries most likely to be affected by AI and found very little job loss so far. According to one analysis, "AI is not reliable or advanced enough yet to replace many existing jobs".

While some traders were worried about AI replacing workers, other investors focused on companies building the computer infrastructure that AI needs. CoreWeave, which went public in March 2025, continued to benefit from massive spending by major technology companies. Meta Platforms and Microsoft are CoreWeave's biggest customers, while AI specialist OpenAI has also given the company major contracts. These companies are buying computing power from CoreWeave to run their AI applications.

The business results for CoreWeave show strong growth. The company's backlog of future work jumped almost four times higher in the third quarter of 2025, reaching $55.6 billion. This happened even as the company's quarterly revenue jumped 133%. The reason for this growth is clear: CoreWeave is building data centers equipped with the latest powerful computer chips from Nvidia that companies need to run AI.

Looking ahead to 2026, analysts expect enormous spending on AI data center infrastructure. The top four largest technology companies in the United States are expected to spend a massive $700 billion in 2026 building new data centers. This represents almost a 78% increase compared to the previous year. Because of this huge spending, analysts predict that CoreWeave's revenue could more than double to approximately $12 billion in 2026. If the company's value stays at 10 times its sales, its total market value could reach $120 billion, up from the current $50 billion.

CoreWeave recently received additional help with a $2 billion investment from Nvidia, which will allow the company to build new computer centers more quickly. The company's management stated in November 2025 that it was running 590 megawatts of active data center capacity and wanted to bring online more than 1 gigawatt over the next 12 to 24 months. With Nvidia's investment, the company may be able to speed up this timeline, leading to even stronger growth.

This week's trading activity shows how AI affects different parts of the market in very different ways. Worry about AI's impact on workers caused many stocks to fall sharply. At the same time, companies that provide the actual computer infrastructure for AI continue to show strong business growth and attract investor interest. This split in investor feelings is likely to continue shaping trading patterns as more information becomes available about AI's real-world impact on businesses and employment.