While Nvidia is undoubtedly the dominant player in artificial intelligence (AI) and a smart investment, let's consider a few other companies that stand to gain enormously from the advent of AI. While these companies occupy different places in the AI ecosystem, they are all incredible businesses that are investments that should pay off over the long term.
1. META: Unrivaled engagement
Meta Platforms' (META -2.29%) dominance in social media is unmatched. The company oversees several of the most-used apps in the world and commands the attention of over 3.4 billion daily active users worldwide. This already makes the company incredibly successful, pulling in nearly $165 billion last year in sales from which it made a profit of more than $62 billion.
Not resting on its laurels, the company has been investing heavily in the future, especially in AI. This is where Meta's user base will give the company an edge. It has ready access to incredible amounts of data as well as a direct pipeline to consumers ready to deploy its AI products and test them in the real world. And Meta can afford to keep investing even if it takes time to see a true return on its investment. Even after spending just shy of $40 billion in capital expenditures (capex), the company still had free cash flow (FCF) last year of over $36 billion.
2. AMZN: Cloud dominance
Amazon's (AMZN -0.80%) bread and butter, e-commerce, remains an absolute juggernaut incredibly difficult to displace. Amazon has built incredible brand loyalty, and the cost to try to replicate the back end makes it essentially a non-starter for a new entrant.
The company's Amazon Web Service (AWS) is the most dominant cloud provider in the world, and with the influx of cash from companies racing to build more and more powerful AI models, it's growing rapidly. AWS revenue jumped 17% year over year in the first quarter of 2025.
Speaking of the scale of the opportunity, CEO Andy Jassy recently drove home just how big he thought it could be, saying: "Before this generation of AI, we thought AWS had the chance to ultimately be a multihundred-billion dollar revenue run rate business. We now think it could be even larger."
Image source: Getty Images.
3. AUR: Robotrucking leader
While a ton of focus has been on consumer-facing autonomous driving, autonomous trucking is a market with huge potential. Trucking is a massive industry, and labor costs involved in trucking are high; there is an obvious cost benefit for trucking companies to implement autonomous technology.
Aurora Innovation (AUR -4.94%) is a leader in the space. It's proven its technology works, it is well capitalized, and it has major relationships with important partners. Yes, this is a pre-revenue company and more risky than the others on this list, and with a market capitalization of nearly $10 billion, the stock is not cheap. I think it's justified, however, when you consider the potential of future revenue. A recent McKinsey analysis estimates the global market will be worth north of $600 billion by 2035.
4. UBER: Gateway to robotaxis
Uber Technologies (UBER -3.77%) is positioning itself to succeed in the robotaxi market despite not developing its own autonomous technology (it sold that to Aurora in 2020). Where other companies are focusing on building their own vehicles and autonomous technology, Uber is taking another approach.
Rather than attempting to develop its own technology or building its own fleet from the ground up, the company is forging partnerships with those who are. Opting to focus on connecting the robotaxis to its vast consumer base is a smart place to be, in my view. For one, it is much less capital intensive, and two, Uber stands to gain no matter what company wins the robotaxi race. If any of its partners' autonomous driving systems prove successful and scalable, Uber is poised to benefit by providing the crucial connection between that technology and the end user.
