Key Points

• Alphabet's AI strengths are being overlooked by the market.

• Amazon is using AI behind the scenes to become more efficient and drive growth.

• Meta Platforms and Pinterest are both using AI to drive advertising revenue growth.

• 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet ›

The artificial intelligence (AI) boom continues to drive growth and transform industries, but it's not just infrastructure players that are benefiting. Some of the best long-term opportunities are with companies deploying AI behind the scenes.

Let's look at five brilliant AI-related growth stocks to buy and hold for the long haul.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

1. Alphabet

Investors continue to underestimate Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL), as they worry about AI disrupting its search business. But that view ignores what Google, its major component, actually does. This is a company built around content discovery -- not just traditional search -- and it's integrating AI into tools billions of people already use. And no other company is better at monetizing that content discovery through advertising than Alphabet. Its search data and digital ad network just cannot be matched.

The Chrome browser and Android operating system give it unmatched distribution; Chrome is the default search engine on the majority of devices, giving it a huge built-in advantage. And a recent Oppenheimer survey revealed that users found Google Search's new AI Mode more helpful than not only traditional search but also ChatGPT.

YouTube remains the world's largest ad-supported streaming platform. Google Cloud, Alphabet's cloud computing unit, is growing fast, helping companies build, train, and run AI models.

Google is also becoming a chip leader. Its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) are helping to power AI development, while its Willow quantum computing chip may be a future growth driver. And Alphabet subsidiary Waymo is expanding its robotaxi footprint.

Taken altogether, Alphabet is one of the most innovative companies in the world, and one you want to own.

2. Amazon

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is using AI to become even more dominant. While it's best known for e-commerce and cloud computing, the company's behind-the-scenes work is where the real long-term value is being built.

On the logistics and warehouse side, Amazon is using AI to determine where to store inventory, create more efficient delivery routes, and even navigate hard-to-find drop-off points. Its robotics division just passed 1 million deployed units, and some of its AI-powered robots can detect damaged products or even repair themselves. Amazon also created a new AI model called DeepFleet that coordinates its entire robot fleet to help boost throughput.

The company's largest and fastest-growing business is Amazon Web Services (AWS). It helps customers build AI models and apps with tools like Bedrock and SageMaker, and then has them run those programs on its infrastructure. It's also developed custom AI chips that give it a cost advantage, and continues to invest in AI infrastructure to meet rising demand.

Overall, Amazon is well positioned for an increasingly AI-focused world.

3. Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) owns one of the world's most valuable digital advertising businesses, and AI is making it better. Its Llama models are driving more engagement across Facebook and Instagram, boosting user time spent on the apps. That gives Meta more ad inventory to sell. It's also using AI to help advertisers create better campaigns and target potential customers, which is increasing demand and leading to higher ad prices.

But Meta's growth story is just getting started. The company is only now beginning to serve ads on WhatsApp, which has over 3 billion users. It's also rolling out ads on Threads, its new social platform, which had 350 million users at the end of the first quarter. With two massive platforms still early in their monetization cycles and AI continuing to drive performance, Meta looks like a long-term winner in the AI-powered digital economy.

But the company is not stopping there. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is spending aggressively to poach top AI talent. This is all part of an effort to -- as Zuckerberg says -- "deliver personal superintelligence to everyone in the world." If it's successful, Meta could become the top AI stock to own.

4. Pinterest

Meta isn't the only social media company using AI to drive growth. Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) has been using AI to evolve into a more shoppable and advertiser-friendly platform. The company has built a multimodal model that understands both images and text, allowing for better personalization and powering new features like visual search. Users can now click on items within images and shop for similar products directly, making Pinterest far more transactional and more attractive to both users and advertisers.

It's also working to simplify advertising on its platform. Performance+, its new AI-powered ad product, automates everything from campaign creation to targeting and bidding. That makes the platform easier to use for advertisers and helps them save time and drive better outcomes.

Pinterest has a global user base that has historically been undermonetized, especially compared to those of its peers. But with AI improving engagement, search, and ad performance, the company has a big opportunity to start to close that gap. If it can continue executing on its vision of merging content discovery with commerce, Pinterest could be a breakout growth story over the long term.

5. Toast

Toast (NYSE: TOST) has become one of the leading software platforms for the restaurant industry. What started as simply a point-of-sale system is now a full-stack software platform that helps restaurants streamline operations and drive more sales. Its newest tools -- like the AI-powered intelligence engine ToastIQ and the agent and assistant Sous Chef -- are designed to help restaurants make better decisions in real time.

Meanwhile, the company said a restaurant piloting its new menu upsell tool saw average order volume increase by 6%, while another restaurant group testing its new AI-powered advertising tool saw more than a "10x return on ad spend" with Google Ads.

Toast directly benefits from its customers' success, earning a cut of sales through payment processing. That creates a strong alignment between the business and its customers, so the company continues to innovate to help drive restaurant sales. Toast added 6,000 new locations in Q1 and now serves more than 140,000 restaurants. It's also expanding into chains like Applebee's and Topgolf, as well as adjacent verticals like hotel food service and retailers. It's slowly expanding overseas as well.

Toast's pace of innovation and expanding customer base give it a long runway of growth. This makes it a growth stock you want to own for the long term.

Should you invest $1,000 in Alphabet right now?

Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $636,774!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,064,942!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,040% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 182% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025

Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet, Pinterest, and Toast. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Pinterest, and Toast. The Motley Fool recommends Topgolf Callaway Brands. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Key Points

• Nvidia and AMD should continue to be AI infrastructure winners.

• Alphabet and Pinterest are using AI to drive advertising revenue growth.

• Salesforce is looking to create an AI agent workforce.

• 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia ›

While there is still uncertainty surrounding the implementation of tariffs by the Trump administration, at least one sector -- artificial intelligence (AI) -- is starting to regain its momentum and could be set up for another bull run. The technology is being hailed as a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and the early signs are that this could indeed be the case.

With AI still in its early innings, it's not too late to invest in the sector. Let's look at five AI stocks to consider buying right now.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

Nvidia

Nvidia's (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock has already seen massive gains the past few years, but the bull case is far from over. The company's graphics processing units (GPUs) are the main chips used for training large language models (LLMs), and it's also seen strong traction in inference. These AI workloads both require a lot of processing power, which its GPUs provide.

The company captured an over 90% market share in the GPU space last quarter, in large thanks to its CUDA software platform, which makes it easy for developers to program its chips for various AI workloads. In the years following its launch, a collection of tools and libraries have also been built on top of CUDA that helps optimize Nvidia's GPUs for AI tasks.

With the AI infrastructure buildout still appearing to be in its early stages, Nvidia continues to look well-positioned for the future. Meanwhile, it has also potential big markets emerging, such as the automobile space and autonomous driving.

AMD

While Nvidia dominates AI training, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) is carving out a space in AI inference. Inference is the process in which an AI model applies what it has learned during training to make real-time decisions. Over time, the inference market is expected to become much larger than the training market due to increased AI usage.

AMD's ROCm software, meanwhile, is largely considered "good enough" for inference workloads, and cost-sensitive buyers are increasingly giving its MI300 chips a closer look. That's already showing up in the numbers, with AMD's data center revenue surging 57% last quarter to $3.7 billion.

Even modest market share gains from a smaller base could translate into meaningful top-line growth for AMD. Importantly, one of the largest AI model companies is now using AMD's chips to handle a significant share of its inference traffic. Cloud giants are also using AMD's GPUs for tasks like search and generative AI. Beyond GPUs, AMD remains a strong player in data center central processing units (CPUs), which is another area benefiting from rising AI infrastructure spend.

Taken altogether, AMD has a big AI opportunity in front of it.

Alphabet

If you only listened to the naysayers, you would think Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) is an AI loser, whose main search business is about to disappear. However, that would ignore the huge distribution and ad network advantages the company took decades to build.

Meanwhile, it has quietly positioned itself as an AI leader. Its Gemini model is widely considered one of the best and getting better. It's now helping power its search business, and it's added innovative elements that can help monetize AI, such as "Shop with AI," which allows users to find products simply by describing them; and a new virtual try-on feature.

Google Cloud, meanwhile, has been a strong growth driver, and is now profitable after years of heavy investment. That segment grew revenue by 28% last quarter and continues to win share in the cloud computing market. The company also has developed its own custom AI chips, which OpenAI recently began testing as an alternative to Nvidia.

Alphabet also has exposure to autonomous driving through Waymo, which now operates a paid robotaxi service in multiple cities, and quantum computing with its Willow chip.

Alphabet is one of the world's most innovative companies and has a long runway of continued growth still in front of it.

Pinterest

Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) has leaned heavily into AI to go from simply an online vision board to a more engaging platform that is shoppable. A key part of its transformation is its multimodal AI model that is trained on both images and text. This helps power its visual search feature, as well as generate more personalized recommendations. Meanwhile, on the backend, its Performance+ platform combines AI and automation to help advertisers run better campaigns.

The strategy is working, as the platform is both gaining more users and monetizing them better. Last quarter, it grew its monthly active users by 10% to 570 million. Much of that user growth is coming from emerging markets. Through the help of Google's strong global ad network, with whom it's partnered, Pinterest is also much better at monetizing these users. In the first quarter, its "rest of world" segment's average revenue per user (ARPU) jumped 29%, while overall segment revenue soared 49%.

With a large but still undermonetized user base, Pinterest has a lot of growth ahead.

Salesforce

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) is no stranger to innovation, being one of the first large companies to embrace the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. A leader in customer relationship management (CRM) software, the company is now looking to become a leader in agentic AI and digital labor.

Salesforce's CRM platform was built to give its users a unified view of their siloed data all in one place. This helped create efficiencies and reduce costs by giving real-time insights and allowing for improved forecasting.

With the advent of AI, it is now looking to use its platform to create a digital workforce of AI agents that can complete tasks with little human supervision. It believes that the combination of apps, data, automation, and metadata into a single framework it calls ADAM will give it a leg up in this new agentic AI race.

The company has a huge installed user base, and its new Agentforce platform is off to a good start with over 4,000 paying customers since its October launch. With its consumption-based product, the company has a huge opportunity ahead with AI agents.

Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $694,758!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $998,376!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,058% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet, Pinterest, and Salesforce. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Nvidia, Pinterest, and Salesforce. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

With the stock market settling in after a volatile period, now is a good time to start looking at some leading growth stocks that have strong potential over the next decade.

Here are five growth stocks across industries that investors can look to hold for the long term.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

1. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM) is one of the most critical players in the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. As the world's leading contract chip manufacturer, TSMC manufactures the advanced semiconductors powering a range of products from AI infrastructure to smartphones and automotive tech.

Producing these chips isn't easy, as it requires leading-edge technology, precision manufacturing, and scale. Few companies in the world have the capabilities or the track record that TSMC does, and with competitors struggling, it has also garnered strong pricing power.

As such, the company has become the go-to partner for top chip designers, thanks to its leadership in advanced nodes and packaging. Advanced nodes refer to manufacturing processes that allow more transistors to be packed onto a chip, which in turn boosts performance and power efficiency.

Meanwhile, demand for high-performance computing, including AI chips, has exploded. With AI workloads growing, TSMC is expanding capacity alongside key customers to meet future demand.

Despite its pivotal role in the AI supply chain, TSMC's stock still looks reasonably valued. For long-term investors looking to benefit from the continued growth in AI infrastructure and semiconductors in general, TSMC is a great stock to hold.

2. Pinterest

Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) has undergone a quiet but powerful transformation under CEO Bill Ready. Over the past three years, the company has invested heavily in technology to turn its massive user base, which now sits at more than 570 million monthly active users worldwide, into a growth engine. Pinterest is no longer just an online vision board; it's become a shoppable platform with growing ad conversion capabilities.

One of the big drivers behind Pinterest's transformation has been its embrace of AI. The company built a multimodal model trained on both images and text to better understand what users are looking for. This powers personalized recommendations, while a visual search feature makes it easier for users to find and shop for products they see in pinned images. On the backend, meanwhile, its Performance+ platform is giving advertisers the tools to run better campaigns.

The results speak for themselves. Last quarter, Pinterest's revenue jumped 16%. Average revenue per user (ARPU) climbed across all regions, especially outside the U.S., where Pinterest is starting to better monetize users in emerging markets through the help of a partnership with Google.

Pinterest's stock still looks attractively valued, and the company is just scratching the surface of monetizing its user base. With AI-powered tools and a more shoppable platform, Pinterest has solid long-term investment potential.

3. Dutch Bros

Dutch Bros (NYSE: BROS) is shaping up to be one of the most compelling expansion stories in the restaurant space. With just over 1,000 locations across 18 states, the company believes it can more than double its footprint to 2,029 shops by 2029, and it sees the opportunity to eventually support 7,000 coffee shops nationwide.

Meanwhile, its small, drive-thru-focused shops are inexpensive to build, have attractive unit economics, and offer fast payback periods.

What makes the story even more attractive, though, is that Dutch Bros is only now starting to unlock other key growth levers. Mobile ordering, for example, is still early but gaining traction, accounting for only 11% of transactions last quarter. Mobile ordering also feeds into its loyalty program, allowing it to personalize its marketing and promotions.

The company is also leaning into food, testing hot items to drive breakfast sales at a few select locations. Food currently makes up less than 2% of sales, compared to nearly 20% at Starbucks, so there's real upside here. With more menu expansion and store openings on the way, Dutch Bros looks like a long-term winner.

4. Philip Morris International

Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) is a growth stock in a defensive industry. While many tobacco companies are struggling with declining cigarette volumes in the U.S., Philip Morris doesn't have to worry about that because it doesn't sell cigarettes domestically. Instead, its growth is being driven by its smokeless portfolio, led by Zyn and Iqos, both of which have better unit economics than traditional cigarettes.

Zyn, its fast-growing nicotine pouch, has been its biggest growth driver, as evidenced by U.S. shipment volumes jumping 53% in Q1.

Meanwhile, Iqos, its premium heated tobacco product, continues to gain traction in Europe and Japan, with early success in new markets like Mexico City, Jakarta, and Seoul. In addition, after buying back its U.S. rights from Altria, the U.S. has the potential to be its next big growth driver. At the same time, its traditional cigarette business remains stable overseas, helped by strong pricing power and steady demand.

With strong pricing power, local manufacturing that limits tariff exposure, and growing demand for Zyn and Iqos, Philip Morris looks well positioned to keep delivering strong growth in the future.

5. Eli Lilly

Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) has emerged as a leader in the booming GLP-1 drug space, with surging demand continuing to drive strong revenue growth. Last quarter, its two key GLP-1 drugs -- Mounjaro and Zepbound -- generated a combined $6.1 billion in revenue, up sharply year over year. While Zepbound is officially approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for weight loss in obese adults or overweight adults with at least one weight-related condition, and Mounjaro is approved to help adults with type 2 diabetes, the reality is that the growth of these drugs is being driven by their being prescribed off-label for weight loss.

However, the drug that could be the biggest game changer for Lilly is still on its way. Orforglipron, its first oral GLP-1 drug candidate, recently demonstrated in a phase 3 trial that patients who took the drug lost considerable weight. As an oral medication, it is a much more convenient alternative to injectable GLP-1 drugs, making it especially appealing to patients who are wary of needles.

Orforglipron is also easier to manufacture and distribute than injectable drugs, as it doesn't require cold storage or injection pens. This should help Lilly avoid the supply constraints it saw with its injectable GLP-1 portfolio. With orforglipron looking like it has the potential to be the most potent oral GLP-1 weight loss drug on the market, Lilly is well positioned for continued future growth.

Should you invest $1,000 in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing right now?

Before you buy stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $868,615!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025

Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Philip Morris International and Pinterest. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Pinterest and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends Dutch Bros and Philip Morris International. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Many hypergrowth tech stocks skyrocketed during the buying frenzy in meme stocks throughout 2020 and 2021. But in 2022 and 2023, many of those stocks stumbled as interest rates rose. Some bounced back in 2024 as interest rates declined, but cooled again this year as the Trump administration's tariffs, trade wars, and other unpredictable headwinds rattled the markets.

However, a lot of those hypergrowth plays are still built for long-term growth. So if you can stomach a bit of near-term volatility, these three stocks -- Pinterest (NYSE: PINS), AppLovin (NASDAQ: APPS), and CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) -- might just be worth accumulating throughout the rest of the year.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

1. Pinterest

Pinterest carved out its own niche in the crowded social media market with its virtual pinboards for sharing ideas, interests, and hobbies. That focus insulated it from the hate speech and misinformation that dogged other social media platforms, and its pinboards were a natural fit for digital ads and small digital storefronts.

Many retailers, like IKEA, have uploaded their entire catalogs to Pinterest's boards as "shoppable" pinboards.

From 2020 to 2024, Pinterest's year-end monthly active users (MAUs) increased from 459 million to 553 million, its annual revenue more than doubled from $1.69 billion to $3.65 billion, and the company finally turned profitable in 2024. Its MAUs grew 10% year over year to 570 million in the first quarter of 2025, which definitively deflated the bearish thesis that its popularity was just a pandemic-era fad.

Pinterest's recent growth was driven by its overseas expansion, new Gen Z users who curbed its dependence on older users, fresh video content, more e-commerce tools, and new artificial intelligence (AI)-driven recommendations, which crafted targeted ads based on its users' pinned interests. It should continue growing as it monetizes its overseas users more aggressively while deepening its lucrative advertising and e-commerce partnership with Amazon.

From 2024 to 2027, analysts expect Pinterest's revenue to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to increase at a CAGR of 21%. It still looks cheap at 16 times this year's adjusted EBITDA -- and it could have plenty of room to grow as the social shopping market heats up.

2. AppLovin

AppLovin is a publisher of mobile games, but it also helps other developers monetize their apps with integrated ads. Most of its growth is now driven by the advertising business, which benefited from the growing popularity of its AI-powered AXON ad discovery services to help advertisers connect with potential customers.

To accelerate that expansion and evolution, the company acquired the mobile ad tech company MoPub in 2021 and the streaming media advertising company Wurl in 2022. It even placed a bid for TikTok's U.S. business, but that potentially transformative deal faces an uncertain future. AppLovin is also in the process of selling its slower-growth mobile gaming division to Tripledot Studios, and it could grow much faster and at higher margins once it closes that deal.

From 2020 to 2024, AppLovin's revenue more than tripled, from $1.45 billion to $4.71 billion. It slipped to a net loss in 2022, but turned profitable again in 2023. Its net profit more than quadrupled to $1.58 billion in 2024. Its robust profit growth and swelling market cap might even pave the way toward its eventual inclusion in the S&P 500.

From 2024 to 2027, analysts expect AppLovin's revenue and earnings per share to grow at a CAGR of 22% and 45%, respectively. The stock might seem a bit pricey at 51 times this year's earnings, but the rapid growth of its AI-driven advertising business should justify that higher valuation.

3. CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company that eschews on-site appliances and offers its endpoint security tools only as cloud-native services on its Falcon platform. That approach is stickier and easier to scale, and it doesn't require any on-site maintenance or updates.

From fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2025 (which ended this January), CrowdStrike's annual revenue more than quadrupled from $874 million to $3.95 billion, while the percentage of customers using at least five of its modules (at the end of the year) rose from 47% to 67%. It's still not consistently profitable according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), but its non-GAAP net income increased at an impressive CAGR of 99% during those four years.

From fiscal 2025 to fiscal 2028, analysts expect its revenue to grow at a CAGR of 22%. They also expect it to turn profitable on a GAAP basis in fiscal 2027 -- and more than triple its net income in fiscal 2028. That impressive growth trajectory should be driven by its continued disruption of on-site appliances, the expansion of its new AI-driven threat detection services, and a resolution of the legal and regulatory problems related to its widespread outage last July.

CrowdStrike's business is gradually maturing, and its stock might not seem like a bargain at 24 times this year's sales, but I think it remains one of the best cybersecurity plays for long-term investors.

Should you invest $1,000 in Pinterest right now?

Before you buy stock in Pinterest, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Pinterest wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $868,615!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Leo Sun has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, CrowdStrike, and Pinterest. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

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.

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.

Should you invest $1,000 in Palantir Technologies right now?

Before you buy stock in Palantir Technologies, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Palantir Technologies wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $635,275!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $826,385!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 967% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of May 12, 2025

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.

Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) reported fantastic quarterly earnings results that increased the stock price following the announcement.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

*Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of May 7, 2025. The video was published on May 9, 2025.

Should you invest $1,000 in Pinterest right now?

Before you buy stock in Pinterest, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Pinterest wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $617,181!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $719,371!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 909% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 163% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of May 5, 2025

Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Pinterest. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.