The year 2025 has been very volatile for the stock market. Currently, the benchmark S&P 500 index is trading at nearly 29 times its trailing earnings, far higher than its historical median of 17.9 times.
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While this signals stretched valuations in the market, not all artificial intelligence (AI) stocks joined the frenzy. There are still companies, such as Alphabet (GOOG -0.62%) (GOOGL -0.69%) and International Business Machines (IBM 1.16%), that possess cutting-edge AI capabilities, scale, brand name, and solid financials, trading at modest valuations.
Here's why these stocks seem impressive picks in July 2025.
Alphabet
Alphabet is one of the few AI powerhouses that surprisingly remained affordable amid the AI-driven technology rally. Currently trading at just 18.7 times forward earnings, the company is significantly cheaper than other technology giants, such as Microsoft, which trades at 32.8 times forward earnings, and Nvidia, which trades at 36 times earnings.
This discounted valuation appears highly unjustified considering Alphabet's exceptional financial strength and its robust and comprehensive AI ecosystem, which is strengthening its Search business as well as Google Cloud and YouTube.
Alphabet delivered stellar performance in the second quarter of fiscal 2025 (ending June 30), with revenues and earnings surpassing consensus expectations. The company generated revenues of $96.4 billion, a 14% increase year over year, while net income reached $28.2 billion, representing 19% growth. This performance was mainly driven by the exceptional growth of its AI and cloud business.
Alphabet's AI Overviews (a feature that provides direct answers and summaries at the top of search results) is currently serving over 2 billion users monthly across more than 200 countries and 40 languages. This is helping drive commercial queries for its Search business.
Alphabet's Google Cloud business is also experiencing rapid growth, with deals over $250 million doubling year over year and the company signing the same number of billion-dollar deals in the first half of 2025 as in all of 2024. The recent OpenAI deal to use the Google Cloud platform as an infrastructure provider for its ChatGPT can prove to be a major catalyst in the long run.
YouTube also dominates streaming, with over 200 billion daily views on YouTube Shorts. It's No.1 based on streaming time in the U.S.
Alphabet's Gemini 2.5 Pro "thinking" AI model has shown improved performance compared to competitors in several complex tasks at lower costs. This technological edge appears to have driven an 80% surge in usage for the Google AI Studio platform and the Gemini API in April 2025. Nearly 9 million developers have already used the Gemini 2.5 models.
Finally, although the market has become concerned about Alphabet's decision to increase capital spending to $85 billion in 2025 compared to the prior estimate of $75 billion, these strategic AI infrastructure investments will prove beneficial for the company in the long run. The company also boasts a very healthy balance sheet with $95 billion in cash at the end of Q2. It generated $66.7 billion in trailing-12-month free cash flow.
While the risks of disruption in the search market from AI browsers cannot be ignored, Alphabet's Q2 results have demonstrated the company's ability to monetize AI successfully. Considering all the factors, Alphabet appears to be a solid pick in 2025.
International Business Machines
International Business Machines, commonly referred to as IBM, remains a significant enterprise AI player that Wall Street surprisingly overlooked for the past several years. The stock has crashed after an impressive Q2 fiscal 2025 performance likely due to a weaker-than-expected software performance. Trading at 26.5 times forward earnings, the company is also valued at a significant discount compared to technology giants like Microsoft and Nvidia.
The $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat transformed IBM from a legacy technology company into a significant player in the AI and hybrid cloud space. Red Hat business reported a 14% year-over-year revenue jump in Q2. OpenShift, Red Hat's hybrid cloud platform, reported a 20% year-over-year rise in revenues and reached annual recurring revenues (ARRs) of $1.7 billion.
Unlike many technology competitors focusing on the consumer AI segment, IBM is targeting the enterprise AI market, especially in regulated industries and those involving complex hybrid cloud requirements. The company's full-stack AI suite watsonx, which leverages Red Hat's infrastructure, enables secure and compliant AI use in sectors such as finance, banking, and government. The recently announced acquisition of start-up Seek AI will further strengthen the watsonx platform with natural language capabilities.
All these initiatives have translated into IBM's generative AI book of business now standing at $7.5 billion inception-to-date in Q1, significant growth from $6 billion reported in the previous quarter.
The overall software business (including Red Hat, automation, data, and transaction processing) reported 8% year-over-year growth in Q2, while annual recurring software revenue reached $22.7 billion, a 10% year-over-year increase. Software now accounts for 45% of IBM's business, with highly recurring revenue streams.
IBM's infrastructure business delivered exceptional results in Q2, with revenues growing 11% year over year. IBM Z (a family of high-performance, mainframe computers for mission-critical workloads) revenues increased 67% year over year in the same period. Demand has been strong for the z17 next-generation mainframe.
Considering the many tailwinds, the stock can prove to be a worthwhile addition to the investor's portfolio.
