Artificial intelligence (AI) investing is one trend you don't want to miss. Although AI has been around for some time, the innovations happening today have the potential to shift how we work, interact with others, and do business.
Two stocks heavily invested in artificial intelligence proliferation are UiPath (PATH 0.26%) and CrowdStrike (CRWD 2.03%). Both companies leverage AI to boost their primary product competency and make fantastic investments. If you want to gain AI exposure, these two are a great starting point.
UiPath
UiPath is a leader in the robotic process automation (RPA) field. This technology records repetitive tasks and automates them, making employees more efficient. While RPA itself isn't AI, UiPath's technologies that integrate nicely with the base product are.
It can deploy AI to monitor what employees do to identify tasks that could be automated. This reveals areas that may have been overlooked, leading to more RPA product usage (benefiting UiPath) and greater business efficiency (benefiting the customer).
Artificial intelligence can also monitor employee communications to make the RPA processes smarter. For example, if a customer is emailing about a certain product issue, RPA and communication mining can be combined to fill out a return form automatically.
AI is a huge part of the UiPath investment thesis, and RPA represents a practical use of the technology. With the RPA market opportunity expected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2022 to $66 billion by 2032, UiPath operates in a vast and rapidly growing market.
It also holds a fair market share, with its annual recurring revenue totaling $1.31 billion in Q2 of fiscal year 2024 (ended July 31). This figure was up 25% year over year, indicating strong demand for UiPath's products, even when few companies are willing to spend big on expensive software.
Data source: YCharts.
With the stock trading at just 7.4 times sales, it's a steal at these levels. UiPath is a great way to invest in AI and how it will help businesses become more efficient. With the stock trading at a low valuation compared to many of its peers, it makes a great buy.
CrowdStrike
Thwarting cyberattacks is critical in today's digital age. Not only are cyberattacks damaging to internal systems, but they can also have significant effects on how customers view a company. This makes it crucial to have top-notch cybersecurity software protecting the most vulnerable spots: network access points. These devices, like laptops or phones, can access a company's internal servers and are prime targets for attackers.
CrowdStrike is a leader in the endpoint protection industry and uses AI to enhance its protection. By using machine learning (ML), a branch of AI, to understand what is normal activity and what is a threat, it can pinpoint an attack quickly. After it detects what it believes to be a breach, it shuts down the intruder and prevents data loss. Once the attack concludes, CrowdStrike automatically distributes information about that threat worldwide to protect other customers from the same intrusion.
This technology has become the industry standard in endpoint protection, and CrowdStrike was named a leader in the industry by tech research firm Gartner. But CrowdStrike also has more than 20 other products that integrate with its base offering, further expanding its reach as a cybersecurity partner for businesses. With 63% of customers utilizing at least five products and 24% deploying seven, it has done a great job expanding its reach.
With the company increasing annual recurring revenue by 37% to $2.93 billion in Q3 of FY 2024 (ended July 31), it's also seeing rapid growth despite its large size. Furthermore, CrowdStrike is starting to generate profits, having posted positive generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) net income for the past two quarters.
Because it is barely turning the corner of profitability, we must value CrowdStrike using its price-to-sales (P/S) valuation.
Data source: YCharts.
While it's cheaper than it has been, CrowdStrike is an expensive stock trading at 16 times sales. But with its strong growth rate, industry-leading technology, and a market opportunity expected to expand from $76 billion in 2023 to $158 billion by 2026, it's worth the premium.
Both CrowdStrike and UiPath make for great AI investments but aren't necessarily focused on artificial intelligence themselves. Instead, it's a tool each company uses to improve their base product. Because of that, they are also safer investments than many of the high-flying AI companies in the market today.
