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The landscape of top artificial intelligence stocks continues to evolve. Amid worries over an AI bubble, investors need to be picky when looking at semiconductor, software and other plays. Among AI stocks in the spotlight are Oracle (ORCL), Nvidia (NVDA), Palantir (PLTR), CoreWeave (CRWV) and Snowflake (SNOW).
To be sure, top AI stocks such as Nvidia face high expectations. For many companies — such as Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) — the rise of generative AI poses both risk and opportunity.
Will Apple Surprise In 2026 With Siri Upgrade
Many companies suddenly tout AI product roadmaps. In general, look for AI stocks that use artificial intelligence to improve products or gain a strategic edge.
Since the emergence of OpenAI's ChatGPT in late 2022, Apple (AAPL) has lagged in artificial intelligence. Apple stock has gained 11% in 2025, under-performing the S&P 500. The company has been losing top AI scientists.
On the other hand, Apple may surprise with the long-awaited upgrade of the Siri voice assistant in 2026 and integrating artificial intelligence into the next major iOS upgrade. In one move, Apple is targeting a health-focused AI agent, analysts say.
Apple reportedly will pay Google over $1 billion annually to use its AI models in the Siri overhaul. Aside from Siri, it remains to be seen whether Apple expands into a standalone chatbot app that would take on ChatGPT.
"We believe Apple will partner with Google Gemini and make that the exclusive AI layer that fuels the Apple ecosystem looking forward," said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. "With the DoJ win this is now the route for Cupertino and Google."
Five Reasons To Worry About AI Bubble
AI stocks have been volatile. And, many AI stocks have retreated from 52-week or record highs. What's clear is that investor worries over a tech bubble similar to 1999 have increased.
One reason the AI trade has faltered is investor concern over some tech companies adding massive debt to fund data center infrastructure buildouts. Since the start of September, AI hyperscalers including Amazon, Google, Meta and Oracle have issued nearly $90 billion of investment-grade bonds, according to Dealogic.
"Investors have rotated away from AI infrastructure companies with elevated leverage, such as Oracle and CoreWeave, and where operating earnings growth is under pressure, such as Meta," said a Goldman Sachs report. "In contrast, companies demonstrating a clear link between capex and revenues, such as the cloud platforms within Google and Amazon, have been rewarded."
Other investor concerns over an AI bubble include the securitization of loans to data center infrastructure builders as well as the growing "circularity" in the AI ecosystem, which blends investments with commercial relationships.
In another example of circularity, Microsoft and Nvidia will invest up to $15 billion in Anthropic. In return, Anthropic will spend billions of dollars on chips and cloud computing capacity from the tech giants.
Another worry is that costly AI data center infrastructure depreciates over time from an accounting point of view. That impacts earnings.
Finally, the fifth reason the AI trade is in trouble involves power consumption. There's mounting concern over the U.S. electrical grid lagging China's amid massive data center build-outs. Also, some lawmakers are raising alarms over rising electricity prices for consumers.
Nvidia Earnings: Wall Street Reaction
Nvidia reported earnings on Nov. 19. AI stocks initially rallied on Nvidia results and guidance, then reversed down.
A bellwether for AI stocks, chip maker Nvidia has advanced 32% in 2025, rebounding from a big sell-off tied to China-based DeepSeek's AI models. Nvidia's chip sales to China are once again being blocked by the Trump administration.
In a surprise move, Japan-based SoftBank has sold off its stake in Nvidia. SoftBank sold $5.8 billion worth of shares in the AI chip giant. SoftBank has been bank rolling OpenAI's expansion.
Further, CoreWeave stock sold off after it reported Q3 earnings that topped views but lowered 2025 revenue guidance. CoreWeave stock has gained 82% in 2025. But shares have pulled back. CoreWeave stock hit an all-time high on June 20, with shares up 367% at that point. Also, CoreWeave has terminated its proposed acquisition of Core Scientific.
Further, CoreWeave is a new AI cloud services provider that rents out Nvidia GPU-equipped servers. Its customers include OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta and Nvidia. Other new AI cloud infrastructure providers, also called "neoclouds," include Nebius (NBIS), Lambda, Crusoe and Nscale.
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AI Stocks To Watch: AMD, Broadcom, Palantir
Among other AI stocks to watch: Broadcom (AVGO) stock has advanced 73% in 2025. Broadcom also has signed a big deal with OpenAI, analysts say. Further, when reporting Q2 results, Broadcom issued a strong outlook on AI chip sales.
Also, shares in Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) have advanced 80% this year. AMD Chief Executive Lisa Su told investors that the company's AI data center revenue should grow by about 80% per year over the next three to five years.
Despite investor worries over AI internet search competition, Google stock is up 69% in 2025. GOOGL stock hit an all-time high of 328.83 on Nov. 25 after the release of its Gemini 3 model.
Further, Microsoft stock has advanced 16%.
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Further, Oracle stock has gained 21% in 2025, but has retreated from record highs. Oracle stock soared Sept. 10 on its guidance for future contract revenue. But there's concern over Oracle's borrowing and debt to fund data center build-outs.
Among data center infrastructure plays, Arista Networks (ANET) has gained 18% this year but has been pressured recently. Here's an interview with Arista Chief Executive Jayshree Ullal on its AI strategy.
Ciena (CIEN), Credo Technology (CRDO) and Lumentum (LITE) also have advanced on robust internet data center orders.
AI Stocks: Software Winners And Losers
Having struggled to generate new revenue from "copilots," software companies are now turning to autonomous, goal-driven AI agents. One big issue for software companies is how fast customers ramp up pilot programs to commercial deployment.
Software companies that help customers clean up and organize their proprietary data to train AI models and build AI apps have out-performed. Among them is Palantir Technologies (PLTR). Palantir stock has gained 122% in 2025.
Palantir — as well as Snowflake and privately held Databricks — are data management software plays. Here's a look at Databrick's strategy. Snowflake stock has advanced 62% this year. Snowflake Q3 earnings are due Dec. 3.
Meanwhile, shares in Cloudflare (NET) have shot up 86% in 2025. To protect their content, Cloudflare recently began giving web domains the option to block AI crawlers. Here's an interview with Cloudflare Chief Executive Matthew Prince. Cloudflare sees an opportunity to be a key network provider for the agentic web by helping set the guardrails and business model around agent-to-agent transactions.
On the other hand, some big-cap software companies are under-performing AI stocks. There's growing investor angst over the "per seat" licensing business models of some software companies if artificial intelligence improves productivity but results in the elimination of jobs. That potentially means less per-seat software licenses.
Another investor concern is that more companies could develop custom software in-house using generative AI coding tools. And, there's increasing concern that OpenAI will compete with enterprise software makers.
Salesforce (CRM) stock has retreated 31% in 2025 while ServiceNow (NOW) stock is down nearly 23%. Salesforce also reports Q3 earnings on Dec. 3.
Adobe (ADBE), Workday (WDAY) and HubSpot (HUBS) are also among software companies in the red this year.
Meta's Loses Open-Source AI Lead To China
Meanwhile, amid its Q3 earnings sell-off, Meta stock has gained 10% in 2025.
Meta continues to overhaul its AI strategy. Meta has invested $14.9 billion in Scale AI for a 49% stake in the startup. Scale AI provides data labeling services that help train and produce AI large language models.
Scale AI Chief Executive Alexandr Wang has joined a new AI research lab at Meta dedicated to pursuing "superintelligence." And, Meta has hired away top scientists from OpenAI, Google and others. But pioneering AI scientist Yann LeCun has left Meta to found a startup.
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CEO Mark Zuckerberg has laid out five pillars of expected AI growth. They include improved advertising, engaging social media experiences, business messaging, the Meta AI app, and AI devices, including spatial computing.
The social networking giant in April launched the Meta AI app, built with its Llama 4 training model, with chatbot and web-searching features. Previously, Llama had been embedded in Meta applications such as Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meta in April released its open source Llama 4 AI model family.
On the negative side, analysts say Meta has relinquished its mantle as the leader in open-source AI to Chinese companies, led by DeepSeek. Further, DeepSeek continues to innovate with AI models.
OpenAI Launches New Product Wave
OpenAI, a leader in developing AI systems, is making plenty news. Further, OpenAI has unveiled an artificial intelligence powered web browser called ChatGPT Atlas. In early October, OpenAI unveiled new capabilities for building apps inside ChatGPT. Further, ChatGPT users will be able to launch apps by starting a message with the name of an available app.
OpenAI recently introduced the Sora 2 video app, which will provide competition for Meta and others. OpenAI has been leveraging its newest AI models, including GPT-5. Also, OpenAI has released a new feature that enables ChatGPT users to purchase items directly within the chatbot interface. OpenAI recently launched five agents targeting use cases such as contract review, personalized sales responses, customer support and ticket handling — pressuring software stocks.
Investors should keep a close watch on the fierce competition in AI models. Generally, the AI models are battling in reasoning and multimodal capabilities as well as computing needs. Large language models provide the building blocks to develop applications.
Meanwhile, a group of investors recently paid about $6.6 billion to buy shares owned by OpenAI employees, valuing the company at $500 billion. Also, OpenAI has become one of the world's most valuable startup, overtaking Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Anthropic's valuation rose to $350 billion, up from $183 billion, in September following the investments by Microsoft and Nvidia. Amazon has been a big investor in Anthropic.
Meanwhile, Musk's xAI is in talks to raise $15 billion at a valuation of $230 billion.
The commoditization of AI models could spur application development. While "training" AI models has been the biggest driver of capital spending, the market will shift to "inferencing," or running AI applications, in the long run.
AI Stocks To Watch By Industry Group
Company Symbol Comp Rating Industry name AI angle Nvidia (NVDA) 99 Elec-Semiconductor Fabless Cloud computing giants buying more chips to train AI models or run AI workloads. Big lead over rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). CrowdStrike (CRWD) 84 Computer Software-Security AI chatbots expected to automate more functions in security-operations centers and reduce the time to detect computer hacking. Arista Networks (ANET) 95 Computer-Networking Sells computer network switches that speed up communications among racks of computer servers packed into "hyperscale" data centers. With AI growth, internet data centers will need more network bandwidth. Microsoft (MSFT) 81 Computer Software-Desktop Biggest investor in generative AI startup Open AI, whose ChatGPT users require Azure cloud services. Microsoft's business AI assistant, Office 365 Copilot, is another potential revenue source. Salesforce (CRM) 57 Computer Software-Enterprise Pivoted to autonomous, goal-driven AI agents from conversational co-pilots. Expected to use a mix of subscription and consumption-based pricing. Amazon.com (AMZN) 92 Retail-Internet Alexa smart assistant upgraded. Cloud computing unit working with OpenAI rivals Anthropic, Hugging Face and Falcon 40B.Follow Reinhardt Krause on X, formerly Twitter, @reinhardtk_tech for updates on artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cybersecurity and cloud computing.
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