Despite soaring stock market valuations over the last few years, trillion-dollar companies are still a rare breed. Just 11 stocks traded on U.S. stock exchanges are currently worth 13 figures. The majority of them are closely tied to advances in artificial intelligence (AI).
Investors looking for the next trillion-dollar company would be right to consider some of the smaller AI stocks in the market. The technology holds a lot of promise to transform businesses across every industry, and a company facilitating that transformation could be worth a lot of money. One CEO believes his company is on a path to get there, but it's worth just over $100 billion right now.
Here's why ServiceNow (NOW 2.15%) CEO Bill McDermott believes his company is a $1 trillion company in the making.
Image source: Getty Images.
Building the AI control tower
ServiceNow got its start as simple IT service management software, but it's massively expanded its portfolio since. It now sports solutions for customer service, security, HR, finance, sales, legal, and just about any department you can think of at a large-scale enterprise. It counts 85% of the Fortune 500 as customers.
It continues to add new services to its platform with tuck-in acquisitions. It recently acquired cybersecurity provider Moveworks for $2.85 billion and agreed to buy another cybersecurity company, Armis, for $7.75 billion. Many investors are worried about the price tags on those acquisitions, but they put ServiceNow in a great position to provide cybersecurity solutions for agentic AI.
ServiceNow moved quickly to integrate generative AI solutions across its services a few years ago. Its Now Assist AI solution suite reached $600 million annual contract value as of the end of 2025. Management expects it to hit $1 billion this year.
NYSE: NOW
Key Data Points
All of this comes together under its AI Control Tower, which acts as a hub for AI agents, models, and workflows from Service Now itself and third-party providers. With its growing presence as a software provider in numerous departments among the largest enterprises, Service Now is well-positioned to act as the core of any AI software strategy going forward.
IDC estimates enterprises will spend $1.3 trillion on agentic AI-enabled applications and systems by 2029. ServiceNow aims to take a significant share of that spending by being the system IT teams use to manage their agentic AI fleets.
Bill McDermott expects to lead the company toward that goal. "You may have noticed that I recently extended my own commitment here to ServiceNow until 2030 and beyond," he said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call. "There's one reason I did this. Overwhelming belief in this company. This is a $1 trillion company in the making."
Putting more than his money where his mouth is
McDermott didn't just make a long-term career commitment to keep running ServiceNow; he also made it clear he thinks the stock is a bargain right now. Along with its fourth-quarter earnings release, ServiceNow announced a $5 billion share repurchase authorization, including a $2 billion accelerated share repurchase.
Indeed, ServiceNow looks like a great stock to buy right now. It produced subscription revenue growth of 19.5% in the fourth quarter, exceeding its guidance and analysts' expectations. Adjusted operating margin expanded to 31% from 29.5%. And, as mentioned, it showed strong momentum in its AI services.
Investors may have been a bit disappointed in management's 2026 outlook, which called for subscription revenue to climb 20.5% to 21%. But after stripping out the impact of acquisitions and the tailwind from currency fluctuations, that number falls below 20%. They may also be concerned about the increased spending on acquisitions over the past year, although management suggested it was done making big acquisitions for now.
Shares of the stock have also fallen amid the broader sell-off in SaaS stocks as fears that AI will render many software companies less profitable increased in recent months. However, ServiceNow is well-positioned in the AI space, adopting the technology quickly and enabling businesses to use its platform with other AI services.
With the company's enterprise value falling to less than 6.5 times revenue estimates for 2026, the stock looks like a great value relative to its potential growth right now. Whether it's charting a path to $1 trillion remains to be seen, but it certainly looks to be worth more than $100 billion.
