Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform almost every industry under the sun. Strikingly, there have been major advancements in AI technologies which have seemingly occurred overnight. In particular, OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot has taken the world by storm and impressed with its ability to answer questions in a factual, detailed manner and deliver responses in an impressive prose style.
But the AI revolution remains in the very early stages of unfolding, and the excitement surrounding ChatGPT may be causing investors to overlook promising companies that are poised to see big benefits from this evolving tech trend. With that in mind, read on for a look at an AI chatbot stock that could present a once-in-a-lifetime buying opportunity at today's prices.
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ChatGPT is causing investors to overlook this tech giant
Right now, it seems like ChatGPT is virtually synonymous with the AI space. With OpenAI and Microsoft's revolutionary chatbot and other projects getting most of the positive press right now, the market may be underestimating Alphabet's (GOOGL 0.35%) (GOOG 0.37%) strengths and long-term opportunities in the AI industry.
Notably, some analysts expect that ChatGPT could have a major negative impact on Alphabet's core businesses. With the chatbot being integrated into Microsoft's Bing search engine, there is a chance that the technology could have a disruptive effect on Google's dominance in the category. The less-than-stellar rollout for Alphabet's own Bard chatbot, which saw the technology make a factual error in its public debut, probably didn't do much to assuage these concerns.
On the other hand, it's possible that Alphabet was under pressure to debut Bard ahead of schedule in light of the excitement being generated by ChatGPT, and it's far too early to say that Google will lose its grip on search and its corner of the digital-advertising market. The AI revolution will produce multiple winners, and Alphabet stock looks cheaply valued for long-term investors.
Don't underestimate Alphabet
With an estimated 3.3 billion Android device users around the globe, Alphabet enjoys a strong lead in terms of overall mobile OS user base size. As a result of its entrenched mobile OS ecosystem, Microsoft and other players will have a very hard time disrupting the company's leadership in search. The market has become too pessimistic about Alphabet stock.
The tech giant's share price has fallen roughly 23% over the last year and is down 33% from its peak.
GOOGL PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts.
With shares trading at roughly 19 times expected forward earnings even as the company appears to be on the precipice of massive AI-powered growth opportunities, Alphabet stock stands out as a strong buy at today's prices. Near-term headwinds facing the business are causing the market to overlook the company's long-term expansion potential.
A top AI stock for the long term
Right now, Alphabet's core digital-advertising business is facing challenges in conjunction with broader pressures impacting the ads industry. Economic weakness on some key fronts has advertisers spending less, which is impacting the company's biggest sales and earnings drivers. But Alphabet should be able to withstand pressures and capitalize as conditions improve, and its competitive advantages and opportunities in AI remain underappreciated.
Even with the pressures at hand, Alphabet continues to look like a very strong business. The company generated $16 billion in free cash flow in the fourth quarter, representing roughly 21% of revenue, and it ended the year with $113.8 billion cash and short-term equivalents against long-term debt of just $14.8 billion.
With revenue for the ads-driven Google Search-and-other segment falling roughly 1.6% year over year to $42.6 billion, revenue growth was under pressure in Q4. Still, Alphabet managed to grow sales roughly 1% to approximately $76 billion thanks to momentum in other, smaller business segments. In particular, Alphabet is also rapidly gaining ground in the cloud-computing infrastructure space. Revenue for the Google Cloud segment rose roughly 32% year over year to reach approximately $7.3 billion in Q4.
Along with the fast-growing cloud business, Alphabet's leading positions in search, browser, mobile operating systems, email services, and other categories give it access to an incredible array of tech infrastructure and valuable data that it can use to train AIs to improve existing services and inform new product development. So while the rollout for the Bard chatbot probably wasn't the big success the company was hoping for, the market's underestimation of Alphabet has actually presented an opportunity to build a position in a great company at a great price.
