Here's the TL;DR
- Some of the best investors in the world are betting on AI.
- This is a list of 5 companies betting big on AI that still have room to grow.
- Brave ($BRVE) is a customer engagement platform.
- Shutterstock ($SSTK) is a stock photography and video company.
- Accenture ($ACN) is a global consulting company.
- ServiceNow ($NOW) is a dominant player in the IT service management industry.
- Shopify ($SHOP) is a leading e-commerce software company.
- Note: This is an opinion piece and not financial advice. Do your own research.
Before we get started
The concept of AI dates back to the mid-20th century, so it’s not a new concept. However, it wasn't until the 21st century that AI began to gain significant traction in the investment world.
The early 2000s saw the rise of tech giants like Google, Apple, and Amazon, who began investing heavily in AI research and development.
More recently, OpenAI has been at the forefront of AI research, producing groundbreaking models like GPT-4 and DALL·E. However, OpenAI is not publicly traded yet but it’s spurred significant interest in AI stocks.
So instead of showcasing AI-based companies, we’ve put together a list of healthy companies that are leveraging artificial intelligence (such as GPT-4 or DALL·E) to make advancements in their respective fields.
You can expect to find big players such as Shopify and smaller companies like Shutterstock. Our criteria for selecting the best AI stocks leverage the following factors:
- Market Capitalization (must be over 1B)
- Companies actively investing in AI and incorporating AI into their product/service
- Wall St Analyst Ratings (e.g. Buy or Strong Buy ratings)
- Profitability and Growth
- Institutional Transactions
This data is sourced from sites such as but not limited to Public.com, TipRanks, HedgeFollow, Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, Seeking Alpha, Jika, and Stock Analysis.
5 Best AI Stocks for Investors to Consider in 2023
Please note that investing in the stock market is volatile and your capital could be at risk. Ticker Nerd is not a registered financial services provider and all content is for information purposes only. This is our personal opinion, not financial advice. Always do your own research.
Stock 1: Braze ($BRZE)
Braze is an interesting customer engagement platform leveraging AI advancement. They allow companies to listen to their customers, understand them, and act on that knowledge automatically in a way that’s still human and personalized.
Using its own machine learning models, Braze is able to anticipate which customers are more likely to make a purchase or more likely to churn, and then sell that information as an add-on to its main service. When combined with the first-party data that Braze gathers from its customer's end users, these models become extremely powerful.
The global customer experience management market is projected to grow from $11.34 billion in 2022 to $32.53 billion in 2029 at a CAGR of 16.2%.
As AI becomes more efficient and cheaper to implement this will only make Braze’s platform more useful.
Combining this with the rapidly growing customer experience management market, Braze is certainly one to watch.
Braze Financial Performance
Braze SWOT Analysis
| SWOT Analysis | Braze, Inc. (BRZE) |
| Strengths | 1. Ability to anticipate customer behavior using its own machine learning models. 2. Ability to process customer data in real-time, optimizing cross-channel marketing campaigns. 3. Integration capabilities with Braze SDKs and REST API for seamless data management and workflow triggers. |
| Weaknesses | 1. Net loss recorded despite a significant increase in revenues. 2. Potential challenges in maintaining and scaling the platform to meet evolving customer needs. 3. Dependency on specific sectors and markets for revenue. |
| Opportunities | 1. Growing demand for personalized customer engagement solutions. 2. Expansion opportunities in emerging markets or new sectors. 3. Potential to innovate with AI and integrate with emerging technologies for enhanced customer experiences. |
| Threats | 1. Intense competition from other customer engagement platforms. 2. Rapid technological changes in the customer engagement sector (incorporating AI might not be enough). 3. Regulatory challenges related to data privacy and security. |
Stock 2: Shutterstock ($SSTK)
Shutterstock is a stock photography and video company. It monetizes its content base in several ways, including a la carte licensing and subscriptions. It also allows contributors to monetize their content via participation in its platform.
Traditionally the company relied on artists and photographers to contribute audio and video content which users then paid a fee or subscription to use.
It's now possible to use generative AI to create unique high-quality audio and video in seconds.
But Shutterstock isn’t letting this disrupt their business. Instead, they’ve partnered with OpenAI to allow Shutterstock users to generate visual content using prompts.
They’ve also partnered with Nvidia to allow Shutterstock users to generate 3D models using generative AI. Launching a new text-to-3D AI feature on its editing software called “Creative Flow.” The service will allow creators to describe an object in simple text, and Creative Flow (powered by Nvidia's Picasso generative AI service) will convert the description into a digital 3D model.
This will disrupt multiple industries including video game development, marketing as well as industrial design and simulation.
If you believe 3D digital content is the future, you’ll want to keep tabs on Shutterstock.
Shutterstock Financial Performance
Shutterstock SWOT Analysis
| SWOT Analysis | Shutterstock ($SSTK) |
| Strengths | 1. Comprehensive global creative platform offering a wide range of content types such as images, footage, music, 3D, and creative design software. 2. Diverse brand portfolio including Splash News, Pond5, TurboSquid, Offset, PremiumBeat, Bigstock, PicMonkey, and Shutterstock Studios. 3. Positive financial performance with revenues increasing by 4% to $424.1M for the six months ended 30 June 2023. |
| Weaknesses | 1. A net loss was recorded in some segments despite an overall increase in revenues. 2. Potential challenges in managing and scaling the platform to meet evolving market demands. 3. Dependency on specific content types and offerings for revenue. |
| Opportunities | 1. Growing demand for digital content and creative platforms in various industries. 2. Expansion opportunities in emerging markets and new content categories. 3. Potential to innovate and integrate with emerging technologies for enhanced content creation and distribution. |
| Threats | 1. Intense competition from other digital content platforms and stock media providers (especially those leveraging AI such as MidJourney. 2. Rapid technological changes in the digital content and media industry. 3. Regulatory challenges related to content licensing, copyrights, and data privacy. |
Stock 3: Accenture ($ACN)
The current generative AI value chain can be categorized as follows:
- Computer hardware
- Cloud platforms
- Foundation models
- Machine learning operations (MLOps)
- AI applications and services
Accenture specializes in the services segment, which is often overlooked.
While the other segments together create the AI technology, it is often too complex for businesses to implement the technology themselves. Accenture is essentially the bridge between them that helps with consulting, onboarding, and optimizing.
As more companies adopt the latest AI technology, the demand for AI services should also grow accordingly.
In June 2023, Accenture announced a huge $3 billion investment in AI (across the next 3 years).
The company is planning to launch AI Navigator, a generative AI platform that helps enterprises with AI strategy, use cases, decision-making, etc. It is also aiming to double its AI-related headcount to 80,000 and will continue to pursue acquisition and partnership opportunities.
If you’re looking for a solid “pick and shovel” AI play, Accenture could be worth further investigation.
Accenture Financial Performance
Accenture SWOT Analysis
| SWOT Analysis | Accenture ($ACN) |
| Strengths | 1. Global professional services company offering a wide range of services that have been around for a very long time. 2. Strong presence in various segments including application services, artificial intelligence, automation, business strategy, cloud, customer experience, and more. 3. Positive financial performance with revenues increasing for the nine months ended 31 May 2023. |
| Weaknesses | 1. Potential challenges in managing and scaling diverse operations to meet evolving market demands. 2. Dependency on specific sectors and markets for revenue. 3. Intense competition with other global professional services companies (such as KPMG and Deloitte). |
| Opportunities | 1. Growing demand for digital transformation and technology consulting services, especially AI. 2. Expansion opportunities in emerging markets and new sectors. 3. Potential to innovate and integrate with emerging technologies for enhanced service offerings. |
| Threats | 1. Rapid technological changes in the IT and consulting industry. 2. Regulatory challenges related to data privacy, security, and global operations. 3. Economic fluctuations affecting client budgets and project scopes. |
Stock 4: ServiceNow ($NOW)
ServiceNow dominates the IT Service Management software industry and has expanded its products into operations management, cybersecurity, risk management, and IT asset management.
ServiceNow’s main product, the NOW Platform, is a “Platform of Platforms” within the enterprise.
It allows companies to stitch together their siloed software and data systems so that they can be accessible, and integrated to create more efficient workflows to unlock better customer services and increase productivity.
This is a painful problem for enterprise companies to solve. This is why a lot of ServiceNow’s customer contracts are worth over $5 million a year.
In June 2023, ServiceNow introduced a new generative AI solution, Now Assist for Virtual Agent, to create more intelligent self-service conversational experiences.
Developers can leverage Now Assist to build applications faster on the ServiceNow platform.
Administrators will deliver faster time-to-value by quickly shipping products to users. Customer support will be empathetic and personalized, and employees will have incredible experiences, including creating brand-new applications with no code at all.
Adding Generative AI capabilities on top of ServiceNow’s core platform and applications only serves to make it even more valuable.
ServiceNow Financial Performance
ServiceNow SWOT Analysis
| SWOT Analysis | ServiceNow ($NOW) |
| Strengths | 1. Comprehensive digital workflow platform enabling personalized interactions between consumers and brands. 2. Over 7,000 active enterprise customers. 3. Positive financial performance with revenues increasing for the six months ended 30 June 2023. |
| Weaknesses | 1. Net income challenges despite a significant increase in revenues. 2. Potential challenges in maintaining and scaling the platform to meet evolving customer needs. 3. Dependency on specific sectors and markets for revenue. |
| Opportunities | 1. Growing demand for digital workflow solutions across various industries. 2. Expansion opportunities in emerging markets or new sectors. 3. Further development and innovation on the Now Platform. |
| Threats | 1. Intense competition from other digital workflow platforms. 2. Rapid technological changes can lead to obsolescence. 3. Economic downturns or global events affecting IT spending. |
Stock 5: Shopify ($SHOP)
Shopify is one of the leading companies in the global e-commerce software market.
It provides a platform and services for merchants worldwide to easily sell their products online.
They also offer solutions for managing inventory, payments, shipping, and customer relationships.
But the company is also betting big on generative AI.
Here’s what founder and CEO Tobi Lutke had to say about it in a company letter:
“Shopify has the privilege of being amongst the companies with the best chances of using AI to help our customers. A copilot for entrepreneurship is now possible. Our main quest demands from us to build the best thing that is now possible, and that has just changed entirely.”
Earlier in 2023, the company announced Shopify Magic is a suite of free AI features integrated into the Shopify ecosystem.
Shopify Magic will be able to help with everything including inboxes, the online store builder, and merchandising. One of the most exciting parts of Magic is Sidekick, a new AI-enabled commerce assistant that is coming out soon.
With Sidekick, entrepreneurs can use everyday language to have conversations with their AI assistants to help jump-start the creative process, tackle time-consuming tasks, and make smarter business decisions.
If you’re bullish on e-commerce and AI, Shopify should be on your watchlist.
Shopify Financial Performance
Shopify SWOT Analysis
| SWOT Analysis | Shopify ($SHOP) |
| Strengths | 1. Leading e-commerce platform with user-friendly interface and customization options. 2. Strong ecosystem with a vast array of apps and integrations. 3. Consistent growth in merchant base and revenues. |
| Weaknesses | 1. Dependence on third-party payment gateways in certain regions. 2. Intense competition from other e-commerce platforms. 3. Challenges in expanding to certain international markets. |
| Opportunities | 1. Growing global e-commerce market and shift towards online shopping. 2. Expansion of Shopify Payments and other financial services. 3. Potential to innovate and integrate with emerging technologies like AR/VR. |
| Threats | 1. Rapid technological changes in the e-commerce industry. 2. Regulatory challenges related to data privacy and e-commerce operations. 3. Competition from established e-commerce giants like Amazon. |
Pros and cons of AI stocks
| Pros | Cons |
| ✅ AI is a rapidly evolving sector and has significant upside. | ❌ AI stocks can be highly volatile due to market hype and speculation. |
| ✅ AI impacts multiple industries, from healthcare to finance. Every sector can benefit. | ❌ Some AI companies may be overpriced due to excessive optimism. |
| ✅ Companies using AI can outperform rivals by optimizing operations. | ❌ Not all AI projects yield profitable results or produce good business models. |
| ✅ Investing in AI is a bet on the future of technology and innovation. | ❌ AI misuse can lead to public backlash and regulatory challenges. |
| ✅ AI startups are prime targets for acquisition by tech giants. | ❌ Over-reliance on AI can make companies vulnerable to tech disruptions. |
