There hasn't been a single topic that has attracted more attention over the past year than artificial intelligence (AI). Investors believe this revolutionary technology can have a profound impact on the world and have been keen on finding businesses to own in this space.
This AI gold rush helps explain why stocks like Nvidia and Super Micro Computer have skyrocketed recently. Based on their outstanding share-price performances, these two AI stocks are winning over investors.
However, there's another top AI business hiding in plain sight that investors shouldn't ignore. I'm talking about Alphabet (GOOGL +3.42%) (GOOG +2.80%). Here's why it's the ultimate AI stock to buy with $100 right now.
Unfortunate missteps
With 15 different products and services that are used by more than 500 million people each, Alphabet doesn't really fly under the radar. It carries a massive market cap of nearly $1.9 trillion, and the business generated $307 billion in revenue in 2023. What started as Google is today one of the world's leading internet enterprises.
Shareholders should rightfully expect Alphabet to be at the forefront of the current AI boom. However, its entrance into the game thus far has been characterized by some missteps.
For starters, the chatbot first called Bard, now renamed to Gemini, made a mistake during its public demo more than a year ago. It answered a prompt by providing incorrect info about the James Webb Space Telescope being the first to take pictures outside of our solar system. Even internal employees claimed that Bard was terrible.
More recently, Alphabet fumbled with Gemini's image-generation tool. It was creating factually inaccurate photos of historical figures. This resulted in a temporary $80 billion hit to Alphabet's market cap.
NASDAQ: GOOGL
Key Data Points
Putting things in perspective
It's not surprising that the concern from investors is that Alphabet is falling behind its rivals when it comes to AI innovations. However, I think the business is poised to be a long-term winner in the space.
I mentioned previously how widely used Alphabet's various products and services are. This helps explain the success of this business. The company is obviously doing something right if it can register 2023 sales of $307 billion and operating income of $84 billion.
Alphabet's flagship segment Google Search started using AI and machine learning more than two decades ago. And many of the company's other services, like Maps, YouTube, and Gmail, have long integrated AI. Management is focused on further improving upon this strong foundation.
There are very few businesses that have the financial resources that Alphabet does. This company produced a whopping $102 billion of operating cash flow last year and has a net cash position of $98 billion on its balance sheet. Even in weaker economic conditions, Alphabet can play offense and continue investing aggressively in AI-related opportunities.
Despite ongoing intense regulatory scrutiny, Alphabet made headlines recently when reports surfaced about a potential partnership with Apple that would bring the former's AI capabilities to the latter's popular hardware devices. There are more than 2.2 billion of these active Apple devices out there, so it would immediately give Alphabet broad reach. It's still too early to tell how this will play out, but this is a major vote of confidence for Alphabet when it comes to building an AI presence.
With the company's shares trading at a compelling forward price-to-earnings ratio of 22, now is still a good time to become an Alphabet shareholder. A $100 investment can give you exposure to a top competitor in the AI wars.
