Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to be the topic of discussion these days. It seems that every week, there's a new development happening in the space. This further drives excitement from industry participants and observers.
It's becoming more difficult to argue that AI is just hype. Businesses are investing billions of dollars to position themselves to become AI leaders. Users are finding the various apps to be valuable tools to boost productivity and efficiency.
From an investing perspective, it's time to put money to work. Here are two top AI stocks to buy right now.
Image source: Getty Images.
The deals are flowing
One AI stock to consider adding to your portfolio is Alphabet (GOOGL 0.57%) (GOOG 0.20%). The company just announced a partnership with OpenAI that would make Alphabet's Google Cloud a computing provider for the ChatGPT creator.
Before this, Alphabet announced plans to purchase cloud security company Wiz for $32 billion, in an effort to bolster its security capabilities in an AI era.
NASDAQ: GOOG
Key Data Points
The other AI stock to purchase today is Meta Platforms (META 0.82%). Like Alphabet, this business isn't shying away from trying to strike deals of its own. It is reportedly ready to invest $14 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI, a data labeling company.
And looking ahead, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to keep his foot on Meta's gas pedal. He's trying to put together a team of experts to create AI superintelligence. Scale AI's founder and CEO Alexandr Wang will be on this elite team.
Another key reason why both of these dominant businesses are top AI plays is because they have virtually limitless financial resources to push forward. Combined, they had $166 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities on their balance sheets as of March 31.
All about AI
Investors know Alphabet and Meta as two powerful tech enterprises. The former owns some of the most widely used internet properties, like Google Search, YouTube, Chrome, and Android. The latter runs insanely popular social media apps Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Both companies have billions of users, giving them unrivaled reach.
However, it's not a shock that AI is management's top priority these days. For Alphabet, this means making its crown-jewel search engine more useful. The AI Overviews feature was officially released over a year ago, and it's now being monetized at about the same rate as traditional Search. Perhaps the fears about the search engine market being completely disrupted by AI were overblown.
Google Cloud, which posted 28% revenue growth and an 18% operating margin in the first quarter, gives Alphabet another major player in the AI race. "We are the leading cloud solution for companies looking to the new era of AI agents -- a big opportunity," CEO Sundar Pichai said on the 2025 first-quarter earnings call.
NASDAQ: META
Key Data Points
On the consumer-facing side, Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, which are powered by AI, are seeing strong demand. Plus, users of the social media apps can interact with the Meta AI assistant.
The company also wants to make its ad customers' lives incredibly easy. The ultimate goal is to have its AI tools create an ad campaign, within a specified budget and objective in mind, for a customer in a fully automated fashion. Zuckerberg believes AI can help digital advertising contribute a larger share to global GDP.
AI exposure at a reasonable valuation
There's so much excitement around the AI boom that investors might struggle to find stocks trading at compelling valuations. This is where Alphabet and Meta shine. The former's forward price-to-earnings ratio is currently 18.5, while the latter trades at a higher multiple of 27.2. This isn't asking investors for too much, in my opinion.
Buying these two leading AI stocks today could give you the right exposure in your portfolio.
