According to Forge Global, a leading financial services platform, a total of seven of the highest-valued private tech companies are now worth $1.3 trillion on paper, almost double from the previous year.
Leading the way is the AI startup that initiated the AI arms race, Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Forge values the startup at $324 billion, followed by Anthropic at $178 billion, and xAI at $90 billion. All of these notable names have witnessed their valuations soar driven by the AI boom.
According to Forge CEO Kelly, this valuation surge is reflective of actual growth, not just projections.
“We’ve not seen this in the private market ever,” he said. “Companies that are growing at 100%, 200%, 300% on numbers that are already pretty big.”
Forge stated that 19 AI firms have raised $65 billion so far this year, and with the kind of cash they have available, they have little incentive of going public.
“If these stocks are liquid and have access to as much capital as they can get, regulation is probably the only thing stopping them from staying private for as long as they want,” he said.
Rodriques believes that these valuations are “insane” and also admitted that yes, “we are in a bubble.” Nevertheless, he is still betting big.
“You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on datacenter construction. We will spend maybe more aggressively than any company who’s ever spent on anything… because we just have this very deep belief in what we’re seeing.”
For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. The hedge fund data is as of Q2 2025.
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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
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10. Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 65
Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 16, Stifel analyst David Grossman lowered the price target on the stock to $315.00 from $355.00 while maintaining a Buy rating.
The firm noted how Accenture has lagged the equal-weight S&P by an estimated 2500 basis points over the last 90 days driven by flattish to low-single-digit industry growth and stronger performance of AI-leveraged software and semiconductor sectors.
Several higher-risk areas were highlighted for Accenture, including Song (digital marketing), application services, and government services (DOGE). The firm has deemed these headwinds to be legitimate while suggesting market fears “could easily exceed reality.”
Looking ahead, the firm anticipates potential outperformance with an estimated 2% year-over-year constant currency organic revenue growth backed by stable macroeconomic conditions and stronger U.S. federal results.
Stifel has deemed the risk-reward profile to be “very compelling” for patient investors.
Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) offers strategy and consulting services.
9. CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 66
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 18, Mizuho analyst Gregg Moskowitz raised the price target on the stock to $475.00 (from $450.00) while maintaining a Neutral rating.
The price target raise follows Day 2 of CrowdStrike’s annual user conference, Fal.Con 2025, and its investor meeting in Las Vegas. Firm analysts noted how the conference proved to be “relatively uneventful,” but the investor meeting brought in significant news regarding the company.
According to the analysts, Crowdstrike eased investor concerns regarding its previous noncommittal view on next year’s Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). It did so by providing guidance for over 20% net new ARR growth for fiscal year 2027.
This, the firm noted, was “significantly above consensus.” The firm also highlighted that CrowdStrike’s cloud security platform remains “very differentiated” with an unrivaled go-to-market strategy,
This edge will help it to successfully expand into higher-growth markets. Nevertheless, moderated channel checks in recent quarters and valuation at a nearly 20x 2026 EV/ARR which will leave a balanced risk/reward.
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) is a leader in AI-driven endpoint and cloud workload protection.
8. Twilio Inc. (NYSE:TWLO)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 67
Twilio Inc. (NYSE:TWLO) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 17, RBC Capital analyst Rishi Jaluria reiterated an Underperform rating and $75.00 price target on the stock. The rating followed a group call with company management and investors.
The firm came away positive from the call, stating that it believes Twilio will sustain its path toward double digit growth driven by messaging share gains and early traction in cross-selling and AI-enabled voice offerings.
The company is faced with near-term gross margin pressure from carrier fee increases. However, the management has highlighted several offsetting strategies including pricing actions, cloud cost optimization, and multi-product platform selling.
Finally, partnerships such as those with Microsoft, along with the company’s “neutral, model-agnostic posture” support the company’s platform narrative. Meanwhile, buybacks remain the main use of capital over big acquisitions.
Twilio Inc. (NYSE:TWLO) is a leading cloud communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) company.
7. monday.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:MNDY)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 67
monday.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:MNDY) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 17, the company announced product innovations at Elevate, its annual customer conference. Innovations include a new agent builder, monday agents, three latest AI capabilities i.e. monday magic, monday vibe, and monday sidekick, along with monday campaigns – a new AI-powered product within the monday CRM suite.
The company has also expanded its enterprise-ready platform with new capabilities for enhanced speed and precision. Over 17,000 apps have already been built on the monday vibe platform since its recent launch.
The company noted how enterprise customers are already witnessing results, with Pepsi having reduced low-impact work by 30% while achieving 100% of critical deadlines, and Five9 reducing time to revenue by 25% through AI-powered workflows.
“Marketers have long struggled with disconnected tools, siloed data, and the constant pressure to prove ROI. With monday campaigns, we’re breaking down the wall between marketing and sales by giving teams an AI-powered solution built directly into their CRM. Now, marketers have the full customer picture in one place, so every campaign is tied directly to revenue impact, all in one platform.”
-Harris Beber, CMO at monday.com.
monday.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:MNDY) develops software applications globally, offering a cloud-based Work OS for creating work management tools.
6. Reddit, Inc. (NYSE:RDDT)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 72
Reddit, Inc. (NYSE:RDDT) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 16, Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein raised the price target on the stock to $300 from $215 while maintaining an Outperform rating. The firm cited higher estimates and multiple behind the price target raise.
Similarweb regression has revealed that Q3 US logged-in daily average users 0.8M/1.1M above Opco/Street. The metric is considered a primary driver of Reddit’s revenue. Meanwhile, Quarter-to-date ad portal visits also increased on a 2-year basis to +47% vs. Q2/Q1’s +30%/+19%. This is consistent with 3P commentary indicating improved ROI on driving higher advertising spending.
The firm increased its 2026 and 2027 forecasts for logged-in daily active users, revenue, and EBITDA, with 2027 projections now 3%, 12%, and 23% higher. It also anticipates potential upside from large language model (LLM) revenue, giving reference to Anthropic’s recent copyright settlement. However, this is not incorporated into current models.
Reddit, Inc. (NYSE:RDDT) is a social media platform that leverages AI to strengthen search functionality and improve user engagement.
5. Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 76
Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 17, Piper Sandler upgraded the stock to “Neutral” from Underweight and raised its price target to $235.00 from $220.00. The rating upgrade follows key announcements made at the company’s annual event, Workday Rising.
Analysts led by Brent Bracelin said that they left Workday Rising encouraged by early signals that the company’s leadership is ramping up efforts to increase relevancy in the AI era via. Its three recent acquisitions in the last 30 days: Sana, Paradox, Flowise.
Moreover, Workday has also introduced new Flex Credit options to supplement employee-based pricing and a new data cloud with zero-copy interfaces into Databricks, Snowflake, and Salesforce.
“These organic and inorganic efforts combined will likely take time to catalyze a growth rebound. Despite facing elevated near-term execution risks, we upgrade WDAY to Neutral from Underweight after the -15% YTD sell-off (vs. +12% S&P500) given the risk-reward appears balanced.”
-Bracelin and his team.
Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) provides enterprise cloud applications.
4. Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 94
Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 17, Susquehanna analyst Mehdi Hosseini raised the price target $200 from $160 on Wednesday, maintaining a Positive rating. The rating comes ahead of the company’s upcoming earnings report on September 23.
The firm expects Micron Technology to beat expectations and raise guidance. Moreover, it anticipates commentary that will emphasize that both average selling price and gross margin will remain strong and continue extending into 2026.
Investors are worrying about the potential decline in High Bandwidth Memory prices in 2026, but the firm “strongly disagrees with” this view. Micron’s product mix shift toward higher-value offerings including HBM, GDDR7, LPDRAM, and eSSD were cited by the firm as key drivers.
The firm highlights a shift from 8-high stacks in 2025 to 12-high in 2026, with higher bandwidth anticipated to life HBM4 Average Selling Price by at least 50% over HBM3E.
The firm also pointed to disciplined capital spending across the industry and the company’s focus on profitability rather than market share as reasons behind its $5 in quarterly EPS forecast by the end of 2026.
Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) develops and sells memory and storage products for data centers, mobile devices, and various industries worldwide.
3. Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 124
Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 17, Bernstein shared positive analyst commentary regarding Oracle’s TikTok deal.
Analyst Mark Shmulik highlighted Oracle’s expanding position in cloud services, noting the company “recently announced $317B in new RPO which could make them the 3rd largest hyperscaler.”
Shmulik said that the benefits coming in from the TikTok arrangement extend “beyond the revenue and cash flow,” and allows Oracle to become “more relevant with consumer internet companies.”
He added that anonymized access to TikTok data will also help Oracle showcase its AI inferencing abilities. Even though Oracle would need to “explain how they fund this all the massive OCI build-out,” i.e the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, they believe that the deal represents “real upside to the story.”
Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is a database management and cloud service provider.
2. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 156
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 17, Morgan Stanley reiterated the stock as “Overweight” stating that its checks show that trends are mixed for Apple’s iPhone 17 lead times.
“iPhone 17 lead times are tracking in-line to higher Y/Y, but early iPhone supply is better Y/Y, meaning early iPhone 17 demand is likely up Y/Y (vs. flat FY26 shipment ests).
According to the analysts, “our iPhone 17 lead time analysis suggests that early demand for the iPhone 17 models is stronger than at the onset of the iPhone 16 cycle last year, a positive early indication that iPhone replacement cycles could be stabilizing and upgrade rates could be improving Y/Y.”
The firm further said that four days after pre-orders began, “the average iPhone 17 (incl Air) lead time in the US is ~15 days, up 7 days vs. last Friday when pre-orders started, and up 0.3 days (or 2%) vs. the same point in the iPhone 16 cycle last year.”
The analyst are also optimistic about a better production this cycle.
“Early iPhone 17 supply is more sufficient than last year, a testament to better Y/Y production yields and higher productivity in India, where Apple is building/shipping all new model iPhones at launch for the first time in history.”
Apple is a technology company known for its consumer electronics, software, and services.
1. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 219
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is one of the 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street. On September 18, Piper Sandler reiterated the stock as “Overweight” and raised its price target on the stock to $285 from $220.
According to the analysts, the latest DOJ ruling is likely going to remove any overhangs on the shares.
“Google will likely be required to share some data with competitors and outright competitive exclusions disallowed. We think the market is appropriately reflecting a positive outcome for GOOGL, which is avoiding a structural remedy or wholesale rewiring of the distribution / [original equipment manufacturer] economic order,” the analyst wrote on Thursday. “The market has appropriately decided that GOOGL warrants a multiple re-rating, and we foresee healthy spending trends on the advertiser side.”
Besides the ruling, analysts at the firm also believe that Search could reaccelerate in 2026.
“Search has the possibility to re-accelerate in ’26. Rising CAPEX does give us some concern, especially if interest rates continue to move lower. But, execution continues plus new ad product launches like AI Max for Search Campaigns. PT to $285 from $220, reiterate OW.”
The firm also believes that Alphabet’s performance in the AI market could be a growth catalyst.
“Positively, according to Polymarket, Google now has a ~75%+ chance to exit 2025 with the top LLM in Gemini. Given the valuations implied for OpenAI’s recent funding rounds, we think this point alone is enough to drive multiple expansion.”
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company wholly owning the internet giant Google, amongst other businesses.
While we acknowledge the potential of GOOGL as an investment, 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 GOOGL and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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