While there is still uncertainty surrounding the implementation of tariffs by the Trump administration, at least one sector -- artificial intelligence (AI) -- is starting to regain its momentum and could be set up for another bull run. The technology is being hailed as a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and the early signs are that this could indeed be the case.
With AI still in its early innings, it's not too late to invest in the sector. Let's look at five AI stocks to consider buying right now.
Nvidia
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
Nvidia's (NVDA +0.29%) stock has already seen massive gains the past few years, but the bull case is far from over. The company's graphics processing units (GPUs) are the main chips used for training large language models (LLMs), and it's also seen strong traction in inference. These AI workloads both require a lot of processing power, which its GPUs provide.
The company captured an over 90% market share in the GPU space last quarter, in large thanks to its CUDA software platform, which makes it easy for developers to program its chips for various AI workloads. In the years following its launch, a collection of tools and libraries have also been built on top of CUDA that helps optimize Nvidia's GPUs for AI tasks.
With the AI infrastructure buildout still appearing to be in its early stages, Nvidia continues to look well-positioned for the future. Meanwhile, it has also potential big markets emerging, such as the automobile space and autonomous driving.
AMD
NASDAQ: AMD
Key Data Points
While Nvidia dominates AI training, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD +0.71%) is carving out a space in AI inference. Inference is the process in which an AI model applies what it has learned during training to make real-time decisions. Over time, the inference market is expected to become much larger than the training market due to increased AI usage.
AMD's ROCm software, meanwhile, is largely considered "good enough" for inference workloads, and cost-sensitive buyers are increasingly giving its MI300 chips a closer look. That's already showing up in the numbers, with AMD's data center revenue surging 57% last quarter to $3.7 billion.
Even modest market share gains from a smaller base could translate into meaningful top-line growth for AMD. Importantly, one of the largest AI model companies is now using AMD's chips to handle a significant share of its inference traffic. Cloud giants are also using AMD's GPUs for tasks like search and generative AI. Beyond GPUs, AMD remains a strong player in data center central processing units (CPUs), which is another area benefiting from rising AI infrastructure spend.
Taken altogether, AMD has a big AI opportunity in front of it.
Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet
If you only listened to the naysayers, you would think Alphabet (GOOGL +1.28%) (GOOG +1.10%) is an AI loser, whose main search business is about to disappear. However, that would ignore the huge distribution and ad network advantages the company took decades to build.
Meanwhile, it has quietly positioned itself as an AI leader. Its Gemini model is widely considered one of the best and getting better. It's now helping power its search business, and it's added innovative elements that can help monetize AI, such as "Shop with AI," which allows users to find products simply by describing them; and a new virtual try-on feature.
Google Cloud, meanwhile, has been a strong growth driver, and is now profitable after years of heavy investment. That segment grew revenue by 28% last quarter and continues to win share in the cloud computing market. The company also has developed its own custom AI chips, which OpenAI recently began testing as an alternative to Nvidia.
Alphabet also has exposure to autonomous driving through Waymo, which now operates a paid robotaxi service in multiple cities, and quantum computing with its Willow chip.
Alphabet is one of the world's most innovative companies and has a long runway of continued growth still in front of it.
NYSE: PINS
Key Data Points
Pinterest (PINS +2.27%) has leaned heavily into AI to go from simply an online vision board to a more engaging platform that is shoppable. A key part of its transformation is its multimodal AI model that is trained on both images and text. This helps power its visual search feature, as well as generate more personalized recommendations. Meanwhile, on the backend, its Performance+ platform combines AI and automation to help advertisers run better campaigns.
The strategy is working, as the platform is both gaining more users and monetizing them better. Last quarter, it grew its monthly active users by 10% to 570 million. Much of that user growth is coming from emerging markets. Through the help of Google's strong global ad network, with whom it's partnered, Pinterest is also much better at monetizing these users. In the first quarter, its "rest of world" segment's average revenue per user (ARPU) jumped 29%, while overall segment revenue soared 49%.
With a large but still undermonetized user base, Pinterest has a lot of growth ahead.
Salesforce
Salesforce (CRM +4.76%) is no stranger to innovation, being one of the first large companies to embrace the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. A leader in customer relationship management (CRM) software, the company is now looking to become a leader in agentic AI and digital labor.
Salesforce's CRM platform was built to give its users a unified view of their siloed data all in one place. This helped create efficiencies and reduce costs by giving real-time insights and allowing for improved forecasting.
With the advent of AI, it is now looking to use its platform to create a digital workforce of AI agents that can complete tasks with little human supervision. It believes that the combination of apps, data, automation, and metadata into a single framework it calls ADAM will give it a leg up in this new agentic AI race.
The company has a huge installed user base, and its new Agentforce platform is off to a good start with over 4,000 paying customers since its October launch. With its consumption-based product, the company has a huge opportunity ahead with AI agents.
