Microsoft Corp. shares have fallen recently along with other once-hot technology stocks in an unraveling of the artificial-intelligence trade - but Evercore ISI analysts aren't sure that Microsoft belongs among the tech carnage.

"The bottom line is at current levels, we believe shares are reflecting a lot of fears related to the macro backdrop and the positives from a fundamental standpoint are being overlooked," Evercore analysts wrote Tuesday in a note to clients, reiterating a $500 price target and an outperform rating on the stock.

Evercore analyst Kirk Materne said he believes Microsoft is "well positioned [to] monetize growing enterprise demand for AI services at both the app and infrastructure layer," with the run rate for AI growing at a 100%-plus rate and nearing $13 billion.

Materne also noted that even with the small miss in its Azure cloud-services business last quarter, Microsoft is continuing to take market share from competitors in the hyperscale cloud-services market.

Microsoft's Azure revenue grew 31% in its most recent quarter - but that was slightly below Wall Street's expectations, as was the company's forecast, in part due to its limited capacity to offer some AI services.

Microsoft shares $(MSFT)$ were little changed Tuesday, though closed above session lows, after Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood spoke at a Morgan Stanley technology conference. During the chat, software analyst Keith Weiss referred to the recent pullback in AI-related stocks as "the trough of disillusionment" from an investor perspective, while segueing into a question on Microsoft's Copilot 365 product family.

"Deployment and adoption does take some time, but what we are seeing is customers who initially purchased are buying more and using more," Hood said. She added that the AI wave had put pressure on the profit margins in Microsoft's Azure business, but that margins would improve going forward.

"Our margins very early in the AI process are monumentally better than the first time we went through a product transition in Azure," Hood said. "It starts from a much better place. We will continue to make sure that we get efficiencies on the AI platform going forward."

Some investors have also been concerned about Microsoft's big capital-spending plans to invest about $80 billion in its data centers in fiscal 2025. But Evercore ISI noted that its capital spending will grow at a slower pace, and potentially see a return to free-cash-flow growth in calendar-year 2026.

Microsoft shares closed up 0.03% to $388.49. Earlier on Tuesday, they had traded as low as $381.00 - their lowest intraday level since Jan. 11, when they hit $380.38. The stock has traded lower in the last three of the past four trading days.