Investing.com -- Citi analyst Steven Enders highlighted Box Inc and Navan Inc as top picks in the application software sector following investor meetings during Citi's Software bus tour. The meetings reinforced the strategic relevance of software as companies integrate artificial intelligence capabilities, though the path from product innovation to sustained revenue acceleration remains uneven across the group. Enders expressed the most confidence in Box and Navan as demand proves resilient and AI creates incremental near-term opportunities.

1. Box Inc (NYSE: BOX) - Buy, Price Target $40.00

Box is positioning itself as a governed orchestration layer for unstructured data as agentic AI expands its role beyond content management, according to the analyst. CEO Aaron Levie and CFO Dylan Smith emphasized that Enterprise Advanced upgrades and seat growth support near-term momentum, with pricing uplift reaching the high end of the 30-40% range on upgrades. Approximately one-third of migrations are accompanied by seat expansion. Management noted that rising CISO involvement reinforces the security value proposition as agent access to sensitive content increases the importance of permissions, classification, and governance. Cross-functional use cases are helping Box move toward wall-to-wall deployments, supporting stronger retention and net revenue retention improvements that have materialized faster than expected. Longer term, agentic workflows could add another growth vector via consumption, which currently represents approximately 5% of revenue with a path toward 10%. The principal constraint on agent adoption is increasingly implementation rather than underlying model capability.

2. Navan Inc (NASDAQ: NAVN) - Buy/High Risk, Price Target $28.00

CFO Aurélien Nolf reported that commercial momentum remains robust, with second quarter bookings reaching a record level approximately 30% above the prior record, according to the analyst. The company signed its largest customer to date after quarter-end. Navan has a substantial base of signed gross booking value totaling $4 billion of trailing twelve-month new gross booking value, up 60% year-over-year, that is not yet fully reflected in reported results as large customers generally take seven to eight months to deploy. The company's AI agent Ava handles approximately 60% of support interactions versus 40% a year ago, creating a meaningful gross margin opportunity. Management highlighted opportunities to increase monetization beyond core travel through Payments and the BoomPop acquisition, which adds exposure to meetings and events.

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