With the market settling down and trade tensions easing (for now), let's look at four artificial intelligence (AI) stocks that investors might want to consider buying right now. These are all leading tech companies with solid opportunities ahead.
1. Palantir Technologies
While much of the focus on AI has been on infrastructure and building out AI models, Palantir Technologies(NASDAQ: PLTR) has taken an approach that helps differentiate it from the pack. Its priority has been on the applications and workflow layers of AI, where it collects information from different sources and structures it into an "ontology," linking data to real-world objects and processes. Its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) then works as an orchestration layer to help its customers use AI to solve real-world problems. It has also recently introduced AI agents within AIP that help automate decisions and drive action.
The company's solution can be used for numerous applications across industries, giving it a huge market opportunity. Its solutions are also used within the U.S government, which is its largest customer, to help with mission-critical tasks. Its ability to help reduce costs and create efficiencies makes it a long-term winner that will eventually replace older, outdated systems, aligning it with the stated mission of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). A recent deal with NATO, meanwhile, adds yet another growth leg to the Palantir story.
Overall, Palantir has one of the best long-term opportunities in front of it.
Image source: Getty Images.
2. Nvidia
If there were any concerns that AI infrastructure expansion was slowing down, President Donald Trump's recent deal with Saudi Arabia should help ease those fears. As part of the deal, Nvidia(NASDAQ: NVDA) is set to ship billions of dollars worth of its new Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) to Saudi Arabia AI start-up Humain. Previously, Trump also led the way with Project Stargate, where a consortium led by OpenAI and SoftBank agreed to spend $500 billion building out AI data centers in the U.S. over the next few years.
Combine those projects with the massive AI infrastructure spending from cloud computing companies, as well as tech companies racing to build out AI models, such as Meta Platforms and xAI, and there is a lot of AI data center spending still going on.
Data infrastructure spending, meanwhile, is the biggest driver of Nvidia's growth. The company is the dominant player in GPUs, which are the main chips being used to run AI workloads. It's taken an over 80% market share in this massive market in large part due to its CUDA software program, which makes it easy for developers to program its chips and includes a collection of AI libraries and tools to accelerate the performance of its chips when running AI tasks.
As long as AI infrastructure spending continues to be strong, Nvidia will be a winner.
3. Salesforce
Salesforce(NYSE: CRM) helped revolutionize the software industry as one of the first major companies to introduce the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Today, it is looking to continue with its innovation path by working to become a leader in agentic AI. Through its new Agentforce platform, the company has integrated AI agents throughout its ecosystem that can automatically perform tasks with little to no human interaction.
Salesforce's platform includes pre-built AI agents that can help businesses streamline tasks in such areas as customer service, marketing, and sales. The company has also launched an AI agent marketplace with over 200 partners to broaden use cases. In addition, the platform includes no-code and low-code tools that let customers design their own custom AI agents with little technical expertise.
With a consumption-based product that costs $2 per conversation, Salesforce has a large opportunity in front of it if its AI agents can prove that they boost productivity and create cost savings. Thus far, the product has seen a nice reception, with more than 3,000 paid deals in place since its launch in October.
4. Pinterest
Online vision board platform provider Pinterest(NYSE: PINS) has been using AI to help successfully transform its platform into one that better engages its user base and makes it more shoppable. This has helped it both increase its number of users and well as better monetize them. But it's not finished yet.
The company developed a multimodal AI model trained on both images and text that can better interpret user intent and provide better personalized recommendations. This also allowed it to upgrade to visual search that lets users highlight a specific element within a pinned image to search for similar items based on visual or stylistic characteristics. Its visual searches can also include links directly to a retailer's checkout page for an item.
These are powerful tools that have caught the attention of brands and merchants. On the back end, meanwhile, it has introduced its Performance+ solution, which integrates AI-powered advertiser tools and new bidding functionalities, to help advertisers improve campaign performance and conversion rates.
Pinterest has a huge user base, and the company is just at the beginning of better monetizing them with the help of AI, making this a solid long-term investment.
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Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Pinterest and Salesforce. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms, Nvidia, Palantir Technologies, Pinterest, and Salesforce. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
