Agentic AI refers to AI systems that can plan, take multi-step actions, and interact with tools or applications on behalf of the user. They’re an emerging system within the broader landscape of Gen AI, which has traditionally been a multimodal reactive generator of text, image, and video. The same Gen-AI models become agentic when relevant modules for agency (e.g., additional components or capability layers) are added, such as planning, task decomposition, and function calling.
Companies are using these systems in areas such as customer support, software development, research, and day-to-day operations. These are typical areas where they expect to see noticeable efficiency gains or lower costs.
Agentic AI was widely billed as a 2025 breakthrough, but the data indicate uneven progress. On real-world assistant tasks that require tool use and web interaction, the GAIA benchmark still shows a significant capability gap: human respondents score about 92%, whereas advanced systems like GPT-4 with plugins achieve roughly 15% in the original paper, indicating fragility in multi-step reasoning and tool orchestration.
Enterprise returns remain concentrated in a small subset of GenAI deployments. The “State of AI in Business 2025” report, affiliated with MIT, describes a growing “GenAI Divide,” estimating that 95% of organizations have not yet realized financial returns from GenAI initiatives. The study attributes this to persistent struggles with context management, memory, and integration. These bottlenecks are particularly relevant to agentic AI, in which systems must autonomously plan, adapt, and act in response to changing inputs. While the report focuses on GenAI broadly, its findings mirror the real-world frictions organizations face when deploying agent-based systems.
At the same time, technical capability is improving in narrower domains relevant to agents. OpenAI’s 2025 report showed substantial gains on SWE-bench Verified, a human-validated software engineering benchmark often used as a proxy for autonomous tool use in coding workflows, indicating that planning and multi-step execution can advance rapidly when tasks are well-scoped. This suggests headroom for agentic systems in constrained environments, even as general reliability lags.
Spending forecasts imply continued investment regardless of the ROI bottleneck. International Data Corporation projects worldwide artificial-intelligence outlays of roughly $632 billion by 2028, with the US generative-AI spending alone expected to reach about $108 billion that year. Europe-focused releases indicate similar double-digit compound growth, reinforcing a multiyear capital-expenditure cycle for model development, orchestration, and safety tooling required for dependable agents.
Taken together, the picture is consistent: agentic artificial intelligence is scaling in budget and improving on targeted, benchmarked tasks, but broad, cross-workflow reliability and thus returns remain limited. Benchmarks such as GAIA and enterprise surveys align on the same constraint: multi-step robustness, memory, and integration are the choke points that will determine how fast agentic systems move from pilots to profit.
With that background, let’s explore our selection of the 10 best agentic AI stocks to buy now.
Our Methodology
For our list, we screened for stocks that offer agentic AI or agentic AI infrastructure as a core product. From these, we selected stocks with the highest number of hedge funds holding stakes as of Q3 and ranked them accordingly.
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 427.7% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 264 percentage points (see more details here).
10. Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERI)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 11
Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ: VERI) is one of the best agentic‑AI stocks to buy now, given its focus on AI infrastructure and data tokenization.
Recently, D. Boral Capital reaffirmed its bullish stance on VERI: on December 2, 2025, its analyst, Jason Kolbert, maintained a Buy rating with a $23.00 price target, and again on December 9, 2025, reiterated that Buy rating and target, signaling no change in conviction despite market turbulence.
In another development, on December 2, 2025, Needham & Company LLC analyst Joshua Reilly reiterated his Buy rating on Veritone, keeping a $10.00 price target. Reilly explained that his positive stance reflects confidence in Veritone’s strategy around unstructured‑data management and AI licensing: following Veritone’s recent Virtual AI and Data Economy Forum, Needham highlighted how the company’s approach to converting unstructured data into tokenized, licensable assets could give it an edge, especially with hyperscalers.
Beyond those two firms, the broad analyst consensus on VERI as of December 10, 2025, leans toward “Buy” or “Moderate Buy.”
The average 12‑month price target sits around $11.00–$11.20, with a low of about $6.00 and a high of roughly $23.00. That spread underlines the divide between cautious and bullish estimates, but even the median suggests nearly 100% upside from the current price level.
Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ: VERI) develops AI‑powered software that converts unstructured data—video, audio, sensor output, and similar sources—into actionable intelligence via its aiWARE platform.
9. C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 21
C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE: AI) is one of the best agentic AI stocks to buy now.
On December 9, 2025, the company announced that the U.S. Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) selected C3.ai to deliver an “AI contested logistics” solution for combat operations.
The deal tasks C3.ai with building a system to manage and forecast the critical logistics needs of forward‑deployed Army units operating in contested, high‑risk environments. That entails predicting requirements for spare parts, fuel, and munitions in advance. The software will plug into brigade‑level Command & Control networks so supply and resupply efforts can keep pace under duress, helping maintain operational tempo and readiness when disruption or unpredictability is highest.
C3.ai isn’t unfamiliar with this space. The contested‑logistics project leverages its existing products, such as the “C3 AI Contested Logistics” and “C3 AI Readiness” applications, which have reportedly been deployed for other U.S. defense clients, including the Defense Logistics Agency and the U.S. Air Force.
This win for C3.ai suggests a broader strategic shift: militaries recognize the value of real‑time, data‑driven logistics powered by AI. If the system performs as designed, it could give deploying forces a decisive edge in managing supply chains during periods of chaos.
C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE: AI), based in Redwood City, California, is an enterprise‑AI software company behind the C3 Agentic AI Platform, C3 AI applications, and C3 Generative AI, offering integrated AI tools across a wide range of industries, from defense to healthcare.
8. Soundhound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 22
SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN) is one of the best agentic AI stocks to buy now.
On December 10, 2025, the company announced a new partnership with OpenTable to launch a fully conversational in‑vehicle voice‑AI reservations agent, with drivers now being able to find and book restaurants hands‑free through their car’s infotainment system.
The integration hooks into OpenTable’s network of over 60,000 restaurants worldwide and lets users check real‑time availability, make a reservation, and even send the confirmation to their email, all via voice while driving. Instead of fumbling with a phone at a stoplight, a quick voice command gets the job done. This expands the company’s in‑car voice commerce playbook, which already supports take‑out ordering and is part of a broader strategy to embed transactional AI across everyday activities like parking, ticketing, and scheduling.
This move helps position the company as a bridge between automotive, commerce, and convenience, giving drivers real utility while potentially unlocking recurring revenue streams tied to restaurant bookings and beyond. The feature is slated to be demonstrated publicly at CES 2026.
SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN) is a global leader in voice and conversational AI. Its product suite includes voice‑first solutions for retail, automotive, restaurants, finance, and more, from voice ordering and dynamic drive‑thrus to generative‑AI assistants for automotive and enterprise.
7. BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BBAI)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 23
BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BBAI) is one of the best agentic AI stocks to buy now.
As of December 10, Wall Street’s consensus on BigBear.ai is Hold, based on 5 analysts. The average 12-month price target sits at $6.33. Using a median target of $6.50, the implied median price upside is about −0.3% versus a recent price near $6.52.
On December 8, BigBear.ai announced it has opened its first Middle East office at the World Trade Center Abu Dhabi, positioning the company to support government and commercial partners across the region. President and CEO Kevin McAleenan announced the initiative during a Global AI Show keynote in Abu Dhabi, framing travel and trade as national security imperatives and describing the United Arab Emirates as a leader in the application of advanced AI.
The company said it intends to create attractive roles for Emirati talent while building a diverse, high-performing workforce. BigBear.ai also highlighted recent regional partnerships with Vigilix and Easy Lease, both owned by International Holding Company. The move is billed as a significant, long-term investment aimed at advancing AI innovation for global security.
BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:BBAI), headquartered in McLean, Virginia, builds AI-driven decision-intelligence software that fuses data, predictive analytics, and modeling to support planning and operations at scale.
6. Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 28
Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) is one of the best agentic AI stocks to buy now.
On December 5, 2025, JPMorgan’s Alexei Gogolev reiterated an Overweight on Pegasystems and lifted the price target to $74 from $65. The note frames a straightforward driver: enterprises are accelerating legacy-to-cloud modernization, and Pegasystems’ platform sits in the slipstream of that spend as organizations replace aging, fragmented workflows with cloud-native, AI-ready architectures.
More large customers are finally replacing brittle, rules-bound systems and standardizing on an orchestration layer that integrates decisioning, process automation, and data, areas where Pega has long product depth. The rating update signals confidence that this migration tailwind is durable rather than a one-quarter blip, with the $74 target anchoring JPMorgan’s view of improving monetization as cloud transitions compound.
As of December 10, street positioning remains constructive. TipRanks shows a Strong Buy consensus based on seven recent analyst opinions, with an average 12-month price target of around $75.17, implying roughly 24% upside from the latest closing. That snapshot aligns with JPMorgan’s stance and suggests the rating isn’t an outlier.
Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ:PEGA) develops software for customer engagement and intelligent automation, combining decisioning, case management, and workflow to help large enterprises streamline operations and reduce complexity. The company is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.
5. Five9, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIVN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 36
Five9, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIVN) is one of the best agentic AI stocks to buy now.
As of December 10, Wall Street’s consensus on Five9 is Moderate Buy, with roughly 19 analysts covering the stock and an average 12-month price target of around $34–$35. From the recent share price near the low-20s, that target implies about 60%–65% upside.
On November 18, 2025, the company introduced a slate of “Genius AI” upgrades at its CX Summit 2025. Five9 said the new capabilities push AI deeper into routing, quality management, and analytics, unifying these functions to help enterprises scale customer experience programs. Coverage notes emphasized that the updates aim to make contact centers more agentic by enabling context-aware assistance and automation within a single ecosystem.
Five9 positions this Genius AI release as an integration step rather than a one-off feature drop: the routing and quality systems feed analytics, and analytics in turn inform how assistance and workflows are executed. Industry write-ups following the event highlighted that tighter integration is intended to reduce fragmentation and speed measurable outcomes in live operations.
Five9, Inc. (NASDAQ:FIVN) provides cloud contact center software that helps enterprises manage and automate customer interactions across voice and digital channels. The company sells a platform spanning core contact center capabilities, workforce optimization tools, and AI features that augment or automate agent and supervisor tasks.
4. UIPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 48
UIPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) is one of the best agentic AI stocks to buy now.
The company sits at the crossroads of legacy RPA and emerging AI-driven automation, where execution and recurring revenue quality decide who compounds and who stalls.
On December 10, 2025, RBC Capital’s Matthew Hedberg reiterated Sector Perform and lifted his price target for UiPath to $19 from $16 after what he called a “solid” Q3 print. He said execution remains critical, but left more confident that recent trends can continue, specifically, stabilization in net-new annual recurring revenue and improvement in profitability metrics. The firm’s takeaway was essentially that the model looks steadier than it did a quarter ago, which justifies a higher target while stopping short of an outright upgrade.
In other news, DA Davidson also covered PATH earlier on December 5. The firm kept a Neutral rating on PATH while raising its target to $15 from $12. The note credited “good” Q3 results, called out a larger-than-typical ARR beat, and pointed to a better-than-expected guide that pushed shares higher. The stance stays balanced: momentum is improving, but the firm is not ready to underwrite a higher conviction rating until consistency across quarters is clearer.
UIPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) provides an enterprise automation platform spanning software robots, orchestration, and AI capabilities designed to streamline repetitive workflows, capture data across systems, and extend automation from the task level to end-to-end processes for global customers.
3. Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 81
Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) is one of the best agentic AI stocks to buy now. The company continues to secure mission-critical government work, and the following announcement adds a high-stakes Navy program aimed at getting ships built faster and more predictably.
On December 10, 2025, the U.S. Navy said it is partnering with Palantir to deploy Foundry and the Artificial Intelligence Platform across the nation’s Maritime Industrial Base under a new initiative called “ShipOS.” The partnership authorizes up to $448 million and is designed to modernize the shipbuilding supply chain and accelerate production timelines by unifying data and workflows across yards and suppliers.
The announcement, made at a Department of the Navy industry event at which Secretary of the Navy John Phelan appeared alongside Palantir CEO Alex Karp, demonstrates the Navy’s push to improve planning and execution within a complex, multi-tier manufacturing ecosystem.
Coverage of the rollout highlights ShipOS as a software backbone meant to surface bottlenecks and enable faster decisions across design, build, and maintenance, with authorization levels that reflect the urgency around fixing throughput in U.S. shipbuilding. The effort spans the broader industrial base rather than a single program, reinforcing the scope and intent of the deployment.
Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) builds data integration and decision-support software used by government and commercial customers. The company’s platforms, including Foundry and AIP, are designed to connect siloed data, model complex operations, and support real-time analysis for planning and execution at scale.
2. ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 104
ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) is one of the best agentic AI stocks to buy now.
On December 2, 2025, ServiceNow said it intends to acquire Veza, an AI-native identity security platform, to expand its Security and Risk portfolio. The company framed identity as central to modern breaches and said Veza will help customers see and control who and what can access data, applications, systems, and AI artifacts across clouds and enterprise environments. ServiceNow highlighted Veza’s Access Graph, which maps relationships across human, machine, and AI identities, to support least-privilege governance and end-to-end visibility.
The company said the combination will govern what AI agents can access and do, tightening permissions and reducing risk as enterprises roll out autonomous workflows. The deal is subject to customary approvals and closing conditions. Veza, founded in 2020, serves nearly 150 enterprise customers and has about 230 employees globally; after closing, its capabilities are expected to be incorporated into ServiceNow’s security portfolio. ServiceNow also pointed to benefits for existing products such as Vulnerability Response, Incident Response, Integrated Risk Management, and its AI Control Tower, noting that a stronger identity context should improve exposure management and incident response quality.
ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) provides a platform that integrates workflows, data, and AI to coordinate how work flows across large organizations. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and reports running tens of billions of workflows each year.
1. Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 119
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is one of the best agentic AI stocks to buy now.
On December 9, 2025, Morgan Stanley maintained an Overweight rating on Salesforce and trimmed its price target to $398 from $405. The note framed the change as a recalibration after the company’s strong quarterly print, with estimates and valuation updated across the software coverage rather than any shift in thesis. The firm highlighted that the target move was modest and left its constructive stance intact. The update followed Salesforce’s Q3 FY26 results, where adjusted EPS of $3.25 beat the consensus estimate of $2.86. The key takeaway was continuity: stay Overweight, modestly refine the numbers, and keep the structural call in place.
Evercore ISI weighed in earlier on December 4, 2025, keeping an Outperform rating while lowering its target to $340 from $360. The analyst called fiscal Q3 “solid,” noting revenue in line and EPS ahead, and pointed to momentum in Agentforce, with more than $500 million in annual recurring revenue, as a practical driver into 2026. The tone was measured but constructive, balancing the lower target with specific product traction and execution markers rather than broad generalities. The thrust of the note was that the investment case remains intact, with a clearer line of sight to Agentforce adoption and earnings delivery, even as the team resets the target to reflect the latest run rate.
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) provides customer relationship management software and cloud-based applications spanning sales, service, marketing, commerce, and analytics for enterprises worldwide.
While we acknowledge the potential of CRM to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CRM and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now.
Disclosure: None. Insider Monkey focuses on uncovering the best investment ideas of hedge funds and insiders. Please subscribe to our free daily e-newsletter to get the latest investment ideas from hedge funds’ investor letters by entering your email address below.
