Overview
Cohen Milstein, as Co-Lead Counsel, represents Arkansas Public Employees’ Retirement System and other investors who purchased Gartner, Inc. common stock from July 30, 2024, through February 2, 2026, inclusive (the “Class Period”), in this in this securities class action.
Plaintiffs allege that Gartner and Gartner’s Chief Executive Officer Eugene “Gene” Hall and Chief Financial Officer Craig Safian made repeated false and misleading statements and omissions to investors about the demand for Gartner’s services amid the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the gravity of the competitive threat AI posed to Gartner’s growth prospects. During this time, Defendants Hall and Safian allegedly sold their stock for proceeds of more than $68 million.
As a result of defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions and the resulting precipitous decline in market value of Gartner’s securities, this action seeks to recover investor losses.
Important Rulings
- On June 16, 2026, Judge Omar A. Williams of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut appointed Cohen Milstein Co-Lead Counsel for the proposed Class.
Case Background
Gartner, Inc. (Nasdaq: IT) is a global research and advisory company that charges clients subscription fees for access to its research content across several practice areas. Gartner’s subscription model drives more than 75% of its revenue and, for years prior to the start of the Class Period, delivered consistent Contract Value (“CV”) growth—Gartner’s primary indicator of subscription-based performance and profit growth—peaking at more than 14% in 2022.
But following the release of ChatGPT in the fall of 2022, investors began to question whether generative AI tools would render Gartner’s core research offerings obsolete.
In the months that followed, Gartner’s CV growth steadily fell to just 6.9% by the first quarter of 2024. Rather than acknowledge AI as a competitive threat, Defendants blamed the decline on transitory macroeconomic and industry headwinds, explicitly denied that customers were citing AI as a reason for cancelling their subscriptions, and repeatedly assured investors that the business poised for continued growth.
Plaintiffs allege that those statements were false and misleading. Plaintiffs’ investigation found that at least 13 former well-placed Gartner employees, who served across multiple divisions at Gartner, confirmed that as early as July 2024—just as Safian was publicly declaring victory and touting CV growth—customers were privately already questioning Gartner’s value in the face of AI’s increasing capabilities, refusing to renew contracts, and slashing their spending.
The truth emerged in a series of disclosures. On August 5, 2025, Gartner reported that CV growth had declined to just 4.9%, falling well below the “bottom” that Defendant Safian had promised investors just one earlier, causing Gartner’s stock to drop more than 27% in a single trading day. Defendants nevertheless assured investors that there was no “reduced demand” from AI, that any AI-related disruption was “not material,” and that the number of customers leaving Gartner for cheaper AI tools was “essentially unmeasurable.”
Three months later, when Gartner disclosed in November 2025 that CV growth had fallen further to just 3%—triggering another 7% stock drop—Hall doubled down, dismissing the number of clients even considering AI instead of Gartner as “extremely small.”
Finally, on February 3, 2026, Gartner disclosed that fourth-quarter 2025 CV growth had collapsed to just 0.8%—the slowest growth in a decade—and admitted that “a much tougher selling environment” was to blame. Investors understood exactly what that meant: Gartner was not facing a transient problem, but an existential threat to its core business from AI. On the news, Gartner’s stock plunged another 20.87% in a single day.