We recently published a list of Top 10 AI Stocks That Should Be On Your Watchlist for 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) stands against other top AI stocks that should be On your watchlist for 2025.
Investors are looking for new growth horizons in the AI industry to gauge whether the current market rally can continue for the years to come. Chetan Puttagunta, Benchmark general partner, said he’s noticed a lot of innovation in the past few weeks focused on improving the efficiency of algorithms.
“In the last six to eight weeks, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of innovation, especially at the model layer, and then for the last two years at the application layer, taking advantage of all the advances in the AI models. Specifically, what’s happening at the model layer is, as we move into an inference-time or test-time compute paradigm, you’re seeing a lot more advantage to entrepreneurs and technical founders that are able to push to the frontier with algorithmic innovation.”
To explain how AI is now actually improving workflows, Puttagunta gave the example of Sierra, a conversational AI startup making customer service solutions.
“So think of this Sierra AI agent, if you will, delivering the best customer service agent experience every time, replicated an infinite number of times. And that’s an experience that was previously not possible without AI.”
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For this article, we picked 10 AI stocks that are making moves amid the latest news. With each stock, we have mentioned its hedge fund sentiment. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
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Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 235
Ted Weisberg from Seaport Securities said in a recent program on Schwab Network that he believes Alphabet and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) is a “relatively” cheap stock.
“I feel like I’m beating the dead horse when I talk about Meta, but I still think Meta is a relatively cheap stock. Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) and Google, by the way, both Meta and Google.”
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is driving usage and ads revenue by improving its algorithms and user experience thanks to AI. Meta also reported strong adoption of its Llama AI model, attracting over 500 million monthly active users across its platforms. This progress positions Meta well for robust profitability in the next two years as it scales its AI infrastructure.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)’s advancements in Reels and WhatsApp are helping manage CapEx growth as the company strives to stay competitive in AI.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)’s clear monetization strategy for its generative AI, especially with Llama3, makes it a strong contender against rivals like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)’s substantial user base of 3.3 billion provides a data and distribution edge that could capture a significant share of the GenAI market. Although short-term investors may be concerned about Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)’s increased AI spending, its forward P/E ratio of 24x, based on FY 2025 EPS estimates of $24.62, makes it the second-most affordable big tech stock, after Google, within its peer group (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google).
Hardman Johnston Global Equity stated the following regarding Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“During the quarter, we initiated one new position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) and had no liquidations. Management at Meta has effectively addressed concerns about investment efficiency by shifting resources from Reality Labs towards broader AI initiatives with a clearer path to profitability. We believe management has successfully articulated the benefits of this strategy, highlighting how AI is driving user engagement and advertiser productivity. This, in turn, fuels continued revenue momentum and increases the likelihood of positive earnings surprises in the future. Additionally, the parent company of the social media platform, Facebook, has recently taken positive steps to enhance safety, which suggests to us a shift towards a more proactive and responsive approach to addressing important potential challenges and concerns. Weak oversight over data privacy protection was a key reason why we sold the position in the portfolio back in 2021. Removing this governance overhang allows us to feel comfortable to enter back into the stock at a time when we believe it is poised for strong earnings growth going forward.”
Overall, META ranks 3rd on our list of top AI stocks that should be On your watchlist for 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of META, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than META but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.