2 AI Stocks That Could Benefit as AI Moves Beyond the Data Center

Forget the million-dollar nest egg (From Investors Alley)

2026 investment themes include a fundamental misunderstanding of how AI is impacting long-term growth, revenue, and earnings strength for mission-critical companies. AI, unlike other tech fads, is persistent. It is the evolution of technology and the future of tech as we know it, not a passing craze soon to be eclipsed.

Evidence of the market’s disconnect can be seen in the Q1 S&P 500 reporting results, which outperformed consensus estimates by more than 1,000 basis points heading into the reporting cycle.

The underlying cause is an irrational fear of AI disruption that fails to account for the fundamentals. Basically, AI demand is driven by contracted backlogs connected to hyperscalers, which constitute the majority of global cloud computing and form the backbone of today’s internet.

NVIDIA Still Has Multi-Bagger Potential

A “bagger," in stock market parlance, is a stock with the potential to double in size. A multibagger can potentially rise by several hundred basis points relative to the reference price, and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), which is already a multibagger for AI traders, is on track for another substantial increase. While its revenue is growing rapidly, outpacing estimates and supported by strong guidance, its share price has spent much of the past year in a broad trading range. At these levels, NVIDIA’s valuation does not fully reflect the premium investors often assign to the most important AI infrastructure company in the market.

NVIDIA is not a GPU play, not anymore. The GPU story is central to the outlook, but the cash flow it provides and the investments NVIDIA has made make the company so much more. Today, NVIDIA is the foundational layer for AI; tomorrow, it will be central to all aspects of AI applications, specifically physical AI and robotics. Physical AI and robotics encompass IoT devices, autonomous machines, and self-driving vehicles, applying the output generated by those GPU clusters. Revenue growth will be tied to networking, enterprise software, and robotics in the long term.

NVIDIA’s valuation metrics, such as the price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple and analyst trends, suggest easy near-term double-digit upside in the 50% range and 400% to 600% over time, with the high end depending on NVIDIA’s market premium. Analysts, of which MarketBeat tracks 54, rate the stock as a consensus of Buy and see it advancing by more than 50% at the mid-point target. The trend, the operative factor, is leading to the high end, which tops out at $500, more than 100% above early-July trading levels.

NVIDIA stock carries no premium as of mid-2026, but tends to trade in the low- to mid-30x range when the market is fully priced. Looking ahead, the 10-year forecasts put this stock in the mid-single-digits P/E range, an ultradeep value that time will unlock.

SoundHound AI: Building Durable, Sticky, Visible Cash Flows

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) is a value hiding in plain sight because the market is getting it all wrong. While investors focus on acquisition and dilution risks, the company is using its fortress-like balance sheet to invest in growth and widen its moat. The moat is based on proprietary contracts and long-term, multiyear contracts that produce sticky, visible revenue streams.

Among the strengths is the three-pronged approach to revenue, which captures all three pillars critical to SaaS success: subscriptions, services, and commerce. Other strengths include the OASYS platform, which enables users to develop and deploy voice-activated agentic AI applications with ease.

Analyst trends reflect the deep-value opportunity. While fears of a SaaS and AI apocalypse impacted stock prices, coverage increased, sentiment firmed, and the consensus price target improved. Consensus in mid-2026 suggests more than 120% upside over the subsequent 12 months, with the low end implying over 30% upside from the 2026 stock price lows.

Catalysts for this stock will likely emerge with the fiscal Q2 earnings release scheduled for early August. Analysts expect updates on the LivePerson acquisition, scheduled for the second half, and on signs that OASYS is driving results. OASYS is a higher-margin business, expected to clear the pathway to profitability. Closing the LivePerson deal will unlock numerous upsell and cross-sell opportunities and is likely to trigger institutional investor interest. Institutions are bullish, accumulating shares over the trailing 12 months, but ownership remains light at below 20%, leaving the stock susceptible to volatility.

The biggest risk for SoundHound investors is dilution. The cost of its healthy balance sheet is an increasing share count linked to capital raises. The company has no immediate need and sufficient capital for 1-2 years of operations, but is preparing to raise capital to pay down debt incurred during the LivePerson acquisition.

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