In this piece, we will look at the best strong buy AI stocks to invest in.
With 2025 nearing its end, another year has passed with AI dominating the markets. As an illustration, consider the year-to-date performance of two exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that also list AI stocks. The Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (AIQ) has gained 28.9% year-to-date as of market close on November 28th, while the Roundhill Generative AI & Technology ETF (CHAT) is up by 47.2%. Comparing these with the NASDAQ 100 and the S&P 500’s year-to-date gains of 21.3% and 16.7%, it’s clear that AI stocks have continued to attract money.
When we talk about AI, while most attention is typically focused on chatbots developed by firms such as OpenAI, the term also applies to technologies used in the business world. These technologies include machine learning and agentic AI, with the former an indispensable part of SpaceX’s ability to land its Falcon 9 rockets. Machine learning algorithms rely heavily on what is called convex optimization, and according to Lars Blackmore, currently the Sr. Principal Mars Landing Engineer for SpaceX, the firm relies on generating “customized flight code, which enables very high-speed onboard convex optimization” to land the Falcon 9.
On the investing side of AI, the market is dominated primarily by big technology players. In the hardware space, it’s primarily NVIDIA that has benefited, while others, such as AMD, have also seen interest. In the software space, it’s mega caps Amazon, Google, and Microsoft whose enterprise software and consumer-focused platforms have garnered interest.
However, while AI stocks have benefited, worries about the costs of development have surfaced at the tail end of the year. For instance, on Bloomberg’s Here’s Why podcast, Bloomberg Technology Europe’s Tom Mackenzie discussed famed short seller Michael Burry’s decision to go against the AI market. Mackenzie explained that Burry’s “concern does focus on depreciation of some of these assets.”
The assets are chips such as NVIDIA’s GPUs, explained Mackenzie, as he added that the “concern is as you get newer versions of these chips, the older ones get less valuable.” Additionally, other AI skeptics were pointing out that “there are comparisons, they say, with what happened in the late 1990s. 1999, early 2000, the dotcom bubble.” The critics comment that during the dotcom bubble “it was the telecom equipment makers, that, leading up to all of the online expectations around how our digital economy was going to change, spent huge amounts of money on building the infrastructure to power the dotcom era and ended up losing a lot money because the gains didn’t come as quickly, the technology didn’t evolve as rapidly.” Mackenzie concluded by adding that while today’s mega caps, such as Amazon and Google, did emerge during this era, a lot of capital was burned as well.
Another branch of AI is Physical AI, which involves machines using AI to interact with the world around them. When asked about what her firm saw in its key Physical AI investments, Inspired Capital founder and Managing Partner, Alexa von Tobel, shared in a Bloomberg Television interview that one such firm, BrightAI’s CEO invented a sticker “that can go on anything from a utility pole to a water pipeline” to send “an observability layer back to whichever company has bought these sticks” to proactively inform the firm about potential hazards before they occur.
Source:Pixabay
Our Methodology
For our list of 10 Best Strong Buy AI Stocks to Invest In, we used the Finviz screener and Tipranks to make a list of strong buy technology stocks (market cap greater than $300 million) with significant exposure to AI and selected the top 100 with consensus Strong Buy ratings. These stocks were ranked by the number of hedge fund holders as of Q3 2025, and the top stocks were chosen. The hedge fund data was sourced from Insider Monkey’s database.
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. Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 62
Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS) is a technology company that provides contract manufacturing and other services. It factors into the AI ecosystem by providing infrastructure and other solutions that enable data center buildouts.
Investment bank Barclays kept an Overweight rating on Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)’s shares on November 14th and increased the share price target to $359 from $357, The Fly reported. The share price target boost came after Citi upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold and kept its share price target at $375. Citi’s coverage came as the bank remarked that it expected hyperscaler capital expenditure to grow by more than 40% in 2026 after growing by 75% in 2025.
The upgrades came soon after Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS) had reported its third-quarter earnings on October 27th. The results saw the firm’s $3.19 billion in revenue and $1.58 in adjusted EPS beat analyst estimates of $3.04 billion and $1.49. Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)’s shares gained as much as 10% after the results were announced, and management attributed the performance to a strong demand environment that also let the firm increase its full-year revenue guide to $12.2 billion from an earlier $11.55 billion.
During Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)’s third-quarter earnings call, management discussed its insight into the strong demand environment after a question from BNP Paribas’ Karl Ackerman:
“With regard to visibility to forecast and customer demand, we currently have about 12 to 15 months of real solid forecast inputs and demand inputs from our customers, largely around their 2026 budgeting and spend commit processes. But in many cases, we have visibility beyond that. In some cases, for specific customers, specific programs. There’s a certain amount of ASICs, for example, that they may have committed to, and it gives us some assurance as to the longevity and the size of the overall program. So we do get extended visibility through being similar to that.”
9. HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 63
HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS) is a software company that provides customer relationship management products and services. The firm’s Smart CRM platform enables customers to consolidate their data, teams, and tech stacks under a single platform.
On November 6th, Evercore ISI maintained an In Line rating for HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s shares and reduced the price target to $500 from $650. The hefty target cut came after the firm’s third-quarter earnings report, which disappointed Evercore when it came to the fourth quarter guidance. However, Evercore noted that HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s net new annual recurring revenue was growing faster than its revenue, and the firm was also expected to improve its net revenue retention in the current quarter. However, the research firm cautioned that the timeline for HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s revenue reacceleration was cloudy.
HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s fourth quarter revenue guidance was in-line with estimates, while its $809.5 million revenue beat analyst estimates. The results were driven by several factors, including a 21% subscription revenue growth and 10,900 new customer additions.
During the third-quarter earnings call, RBC’s Rishi Jaluria asked HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s management how they were gauging success with their AI products. In response, CEO Yamini Rangan commented:
“Rishi, that’s a great question. And I think I’ll kind of start with our strategy, the momentum and then how we are driving customer adoption because that is the right question to be digging into. If you step back, our strategy for AI has been consistent and clear, which is we want to embed AI into all of our hubs and platforms. We want to build agents that deliver work for our customers, and we want to deliver breeze, assistant and connectors that convert data into insights. And the strategy has just been consistent across the board. So when we look at momentum as well as traction in terms of the strategy, we look at all factors there. So the first thing is, is the embedded strategy working? And the answer for us is very clear because embedded features are being used across Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub.
They are improving the outcomes for our customers, things like conversion rate that I mentioned before, win rate, an improvement in 10% win rate in sales. I mean, previously before AI, I don’t think that types of outcome would have been possible with Sales Hub. I think that’s a huge improvement for our customers.”
