Unless you've been living under a rock without internet or wireless service, there's a good chance you've heard about some of the incredible breakthroughs that have been happening with artificial intelligence (AI) lately. Major technological leaps forward are occurring seemingly overnight and suggest that AI capabilities are on track to grow much faster than many had anticipated.
That said, as impressive as big breakthroughs in AI-generated art and OpenAI's ChatGPT have been, this paradigm shift is still just starting to unfold. While some companies have already seen explosive gains in conjunction with the excitement surrounding AI, others remain significantly underappreciated.
Read on for a look at three potentially explosive AI stocks that are worth buying right now.
1. CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike's (CRWD 0.13%) Falcon software helps protect computers, mobile devices, servers, and other endpoint hardware from being exploited. And crucially, the Falcon platform uses artificial intelligence to grow and adapt as it runs into new threats and attack vectors.
Amid some powerful demand catalysts, CrowdStrike's business has been doing gangbusters. CrowdStrike ended the year with annual recurring revenue of $2.56 billion, and it expects that it will grow its subscription sales base to $5 billion in fiscal 2026 -- good for growth of roughly 95% across the stretch. Even at the end of that projection period, the company will likely still be scratching the surface of its market opportunity.
Thanks to growth for existing services, new product launches, future initiatives, and cloud-security opportunities, the cybersecurity specialist estimates that its total addressable market will have expanded from $76 billion this year to $158 billion in 2026. But based on its targets, the company will still be tapping just over 3% of its addressable market at that point.
However, despite strong business performance and huge growth opportunities ahead, CrowdStrike stock has lost ground in conjunction with macroeconomic pressures impacting the broader market. Trading down 54% from its valuation peak, the software specialist presents an attractive risk-reward profile for investors looking to benefit from AI and cybersecurity trends.
2. Amazon
E-commerce has historically been a low-margin business, but artificial intelligence has the potential to change that and pave the way for Amazon (AMZN -1.65%) to see huge earnings growth. Between advances in AI and robotics, the online retail giant will have opportunities to automate warehouse operations and offload deliveries to autonomous vehicles. The company's Zoox robotaxi business could also emerge as a significant sales and earnings driver.
In addition to advances in factory automation and autonomous shipping, the company is making some big moves in the consumer robotics space. The tech giant is on track to acquire iRobot, the maker of the popular Roomba vacuum cleaners, in a $1.7 billion deal. The move will not only push Amazon into a new consumer tech category, it will give the company access to data that can be fed into AI algorithms that lead to improvements and opportunities for other company initiatives.
Amazon's Echo smart speaker hardware and Alexa software also have the company positioned as a leader in terms of voice-based devices and operating systems. The company's strengths in these categories have already yielded benefits for its e-commerce business and data analytics initiatives, but leadership in voice-based OS potentially creates huge advantages in the AI space, and crossover opportunity between these two categories is likely just beginning to unfold.
With the stock still down roughly 47% from its high and the market seemingly underestimating its potential from AI, Amazon looks like a smart buy right now.
3. Snowflake
In some ways, an explosion of data generation and collection is the fuel that's powering the artificial intelligence revolution. But without special software tools, in many cases it's actually not possible to efficiently combine and analyze data generated from distinct cloud infrastructure service. Snowflake's (SNOW -1.61%) Data Cloud platform makes it possible to bring together data from Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet's respective cloud infrastructures.
AI and big-data trends are occurring in tandem, and they're still just starting to unfold. To put the progression of the latter trend in perspective, Tokyo Electron CEO Toshiki Kawai estimates that global data generation will increase tenfold by 2030. From there, he estimates that data generation will grow another hundredfold by 2040. Snowflake is on track to benefit from the ongoing evolution of big data, and its software tools are already playing a key role in powering AI and analytics applications.
At the end of last year, the data-services company tallied 330 customers generating trailing-12-month product revenue of more than $1 million, which represented a 79% increase for the number of customers in the category. Spurred by growing demand for analytics and app-building technologies, the company estimates that it will grow product revenue from roughly $2.7 billion this fiscal year to $10 billion in the fiscal year ending January 2029. Crucially, the data-services specialist could still have room for explosive growth from there.
Snowflake has seen macroeconomic pressures hurt its valuation and curb some of its near-term growth opportunities, but the market appears to be underestimating its significance as a player in AI. Down 65% from its high, the stock could go on to be an explosive winner for risk-tolerant investors.
