No one knows for sure what will happen this year in the stock market. Some think there's an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble poised to burst. Others expect the AI boom to continue, largely uninterrupted.
Barring a major disruption at the macroeconomic level, I lean solidly in the second camp. My view is that the demand for AI won't wane anytime soon. Which stocks will benefit the most? Again, there's no way to know for sure. However, I predict three AI stocks will be the best performers in 2026.
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1. Nvidia
Nvidia (NVDA 0.72%) is probably the safest pick to rank among the best-performing AI stocks of the year. I predict that it could be the biggest winner of all for three key reasons.
First, agentic AI adoption will serve as a huge tailwind for Nvidia in 2026, in my opinion. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang referred to agentic AI in the company's third-quarter earnings call in November 2025 as "a new wave" of AI that is rising. He noted that many of the world's fastest growing companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Alphabet's (GOOG 0.02%) (GOOGL 0.07%) Google unit, are "pioneering agentic AI."
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
Second, Nvidia will launch its Rubin GPU platform, the successor to its massively successful Blackwell chips. The Vera Rubin architecture, which combines Vera CPUs and Rubin GPUs, holds the potential to reduce inference costs by 10x and require four times fewer GPUs for training massive AI models. I expect the demand for Rubin will be jaw-dropping, on top of the exceptionally strong demand for Blackwell. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said in November that the company already has "visibility to a half a trillion dollars in Blackwell and Rubin revenue" through the end of 2026.
Third, Nvidia's primary growth bottleneck is being alleviated this year. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM 2.65%) is ramping up its advanced packaging capacity to 130,000 wafers per month by late 2026. Wedbush estimates that Nvidia has secured roughly 60% of this capacity, which should put the company in the strongest position for growth among AI chipmakers.
2. Broadcom
Which AI chipmaker will be in the second-best position to grow this year? I'd go with Broadcom (AVGO +0.15%).
The more powerful Nvidia becomes, the more hyperscalers will seek to build their own custom AI chips (as they're already doing). Broadcom is the partner of choice in these efforts, with its estimated 60% market share in the AI server Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) market.
NASDAQ: AVGO
Key Data Points
Data centers are also transitioning to million-GPU clusters. However, this shift will require extensive networking upgrades. That should provide a significant boost to Broadcom's sales of its Tomahawk 6 switches.
Broadcom has a stunning $73 billion AI-related backlog. I think this backlog will translate to strong revenue and earnings growth for the company in 2026. And I expect Broadcom's share price will move in tandem with its improving top and bottom lines.
3. Meta Platforms
I might not have included Meta Platforms (META 2.96%) among my predicted best-performing AI stocks of 2026 before the company provided its fourth-quarter update. However, after digesting all that management reported, I have great expectations for Meta this year.
My primary reason for being bullish about Meta is its robust advertising revenue growth. In Q4, the company's advertising revenue soared 24% year over year. Meta made some changes to its ad ranking model that resulted in 3.5% higher ad clicks on Facebook in Q4 and an increase of over 1% in ad conversions on Instagram. These improvements translate to more revenue and profits for the company -- and Meta expects more performance gains going forward.
NASDAQ: META
Key Data Points
I'm also enthusiastic about Meta's prospects in the AI smart glasses market. Sales of Meta's AI glasses more than tripled in 2025. The market is enormous and growing for smart glasses, with Meta in the lead.
AI glasses represent the greatest success thus far for Meta's Reality Labs segment. I'm glad that the company is now focusing most of its investments in this segment on AI glasses and wearables. Although this shift won't translate to bottom-line improvement in 2026, it probably will in 2027 and beyond. Investors are forward-looking, so Meta's new investment focus could provide a catalyst for the stock, especially later in the year.
