Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly permeating all aspects of our daily lives, changing the way we work and live. With AI-driven solutions helping businesses gain a competitive edge by improving productivity and driving cost efficiencies, the technology has also emerged as a major investment theme.
Investors do not need boatloads of cash to venture into AI stocks. A stake of only $200 (as long as it isn't required to pay bills or for other contingencies), if invested smartly in select AI stocks, can help create long-term wealth.
Here's why Palantir Technologies (PLTR +2.94%) and UiPath (PATH +2.81%) can be attractive opportunities for investors with limited capital.
Palantir
The first AI stock to buy for $200 is Palantir, a leading data-mining software producer and machine-learning specialist.
NASDAQ: PLTR
Key Data Points
Palantir was first known for analyzing huge troves of data for government and defense agencies, to help them detect possible malicious activities in real time. Now, the company is also strengthening its presence in the commercial segment, and its recently launched artificial intelligence platform (AIP) is playing a major role in this transition.
Designed as an operating system for enterprises, AIP is helping transform businesses. It can handle complex tasks by leveraging AI and large language models (LLMs). The platform's multimodal approach enables organizations to integrate data across various sources to make informed decisions.
The company's AIP boot camps are helping accelerate the rate of new customer acquisition and expansion by existing customers. By showcasing the platform's potential for rapid deployment and its ability to address hundreds of real tangible uses across industries to enhance productivity, the boot camps have emerged as a highly effective marketing strategy for Palantir. The company completed 560 boot camps for 465 businesses by the end of fiscal 2023.
In addition to the successful AI strategy, Palantir's core business is also progressing rapidly. The company's strategic focus on crafting industry-specific solutions enabled it to differentiate itself from competitors and foster a loyal customer base.
Although the government business contributed 53% of total revenue in the fourth quarter, the company is increasing its roster of commercial clients. This transition will enhance Palantir's margins, since private clients offer greater pricing flexibility and encounter fewer regulatory obstacles than government clients.
Palantir's shares soared by 200% in the past year and nearly 45% in 2024. Despite that meteoric rise, Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities referred to the company as a "launching pad of AI use cases" and upgraded his target price to $35 , implying a potential upside of nearly 40%. This target price seems achievable, especially since the stock is still nearly 56% below its all-time high of $39.
With the success of AIP, its focus on industry-specific solutions, a shift to commercial customers, and the potential for share price gains, Palantir's long-term picture looks quite rosy.
UiPath
The second AI stock to buy with $200 is UiPath, the leader in AI-powered robotic process automation (RPA). The company helps build software bots that streamline repetitive, mundane, and time-consuming office tasks while reducing errors.
NYSE: PATH
Key Data Points
UiPath is also leveraging machine learning and natural language processing to enhance its automation platform with advanced capabilities like understanding documents and communications. These features help extract insights from unstructured data, improve productivity and cost efficiency, and streamline operations while freeing up employees for more creative and complex jobs.
This approach of tailoring its automation to specific industries has been effective, enabling the company to offer differentiated and impactful solutions to clients. And the introduction of AI-powered products like Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) helped put UiPath ahead of the competition, enabling it to close larger and more-strategic deals.
IDP's ability to understand documents is a major part of handling labor-intensive activities such as managing forms, invoices, and documents. As a result, the product is seeing impressive adoption, especially in industries such as healthcare, finance, insurance, and public health. In the fourth quarter, IDP was a part of 65 of the company's top 100 deals.
UiPath ended fiscal 2024 with 10,830 customers, including multiple new large enterprise clients that are keen on investing in automation platforms. The company is also scaling up its large-customer base, with a 15% year-over-year increase to 2,054 in the number of customers with annual recurring revenue (ARR) over $100,000. It's also becoming a C-suite priority since the number of customers with ARR over $1 million rose by almost 25.7% year over year to 288 at the end of fiscal 2024.
The recent financial performance has also been stellar, with revenue and earnings surpassing consensus estimates in the fourth quarter (ending Dec. 31, 2023). The company also delivered its first-ever quarterly profit on the basis of generally accepted accounting principles and has ended fiscal 2024 with $1.9 billion net cash and no debt.
Despite its solid strategy and financials, UiPath trades at only 9.7 times trailing-12-month sales, far lower than its three-year average price-to-sales ratio of 14. Given all this, the stock looks like a compelling investment in 2024.
