Microsoft stock closes at highest level of the year after Copilot AI expansion

Microsoft closed at roughly $516.17 on September 25, its highest finish of 2026 and its best close since late October 2025. The nearly 3.7% daily gain made it the top performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which itself climbed about 0.8% on the session. Three months ago, MSFT was trading near $349 amid growing skepticism about whether anyone could actually make money from AI. The stock’s journey from that trough to here, a rebound of more than 30%, reads like a redemption arc that Hollywood would reject for being too on-the-nose. What sparked the rally The catalyst was Microsoft’s unveiling of a significantly expanded Copilot AI assistant. The updated product features a unified “Home” interface that stitches together meetings, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and new code-generation tools into a single workspace. There is also a new always-on “autopilot” agent designed to handle routine tasks in the background. The announcement landed on fertile ground. Stifel analysts had already upgraded the stock to a Buy recommendation earlier in September, raising their price target to $575 from a previous $530 Hold rating. That kind of pre-positioning meant a lot of institutional money was al...