U.S. stock markets have experienced significant volatility in the opening months of 2025. At the time of this writing, the benchmark S&P 500 has declined nearly 10% year to date, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq-100 has fallen more sharply, retreating approximately 13% this year.
While sharp market corrections can understandably cause anxiety, history consistently demonstrates that double-digit pullbacks in the major indices often present exceptional buying opportunities for investors with a long-term perspective.
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The current market consolidation may offer a particularly strategic entry point for high-quality technology companies, especially those leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to drive innovation and growth. After all, AI has already emerged as an unstoppable force poised to reshape the global economy, and perhaps the fabric of human society, by decade's end.
Which AI stocks scan as top buys in this turbulent market? Two emerging tech companies are leading the AI revolution in several critical ways, making their stocks compelling buys for long-term investors. Read on to find out more.
AI defense pioneer with unmatched government footprint
Palantir Technologies (PLTR -0.51%) transforms how organizations harness massive datasets through advanced AI systems. Originally built for intelligence agencies, Palantir has successfully expanded into commercial markets with its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which is experiencing explosive demand across numerous sectors, including healthcare, retail, transportation, defense, and manufacturing.
Reflecting this remarkable demand for next-generation AI solutions, Palantir's management projects 2025 revenue of approximately $3.75 billion, substantially outpacing analysts' $3.54 billion consensus forecast.
CEO Alex Karp described this accelerating commercial momentum as a "new phase" in Palantir's evolution, representing the beginning of the first act of a multidecade revolution. The company's confidence is backed by expanding partnerships from civilian enterprises to critical military applications.
What's the big picture? Despite trading at an eyewatering 172 times projected earnings, Palantir shares could represent an exceptional opportunity for investors with a true multidecade vision. The company's unique positioning at the intersection of advanced AI capabilities and national security, combined with rapidly growing commercial adoption, creates a competitive moat few technology vendors can match.
So, as AI deployment accelerates across both government and enterprise sectors, Palantir's battle-tested systems appear poised to capture outsized value in what may become the defining technological transformation of our era.
A conversational AI leader
Fast-growing SoundHound AI (SOUN -3.41%) sits at the forefront of voice technology innovation. While tech giants chase generative AI chatbots, this specialized player has built something potentially more valuable: voice systems that let humans talk naturally to machines in real-world environments where noise, accents, and domain-specific vocabulary create barriers for competitors.
SoundHound AI's latest financial results validate its unique business model. Specifically, the company reported Q4 2024 revenue that doubled year-over-year to $34.5 million. Even more impressively, management announced a projected 2025 revenue range of between $157 million to $177 million, implying full-year revenue growth of 97% at the midway point of this guidance.
What's driving this explosive growth? SoundHound's technology now powers voice ordering at major restaurant chains, customer service operations in financial institutions, and voice assistants in vehicles from multiple manufacturers, including Stellantis.
Why is the stock a top buy-and-hold candidate? SoundHound AI is perfectly positioned to ride the emergence of voice-powered AI solutions across most, if not all, sectors of the global economy. While it does face fierce competition from big tech, the company's specialized focus and decade-plus of proprietary voice technology development enable it to target high-value verticals where voice interfaces deliver immediate operational benefits.
Bringing the investing opportunity into focus, the conversational AI market is forecast to expand at a compound annual growth rate of around 24% to reach a total value of $136 billion by 2035, according to Roots Analysis. With a market cap of just $3.1 billion, this AI voice play appears to have significant room to run over the next 10 years, if not much longer.
