15 Best Performing AI Stocks Heading into 2026

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7. Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA)

Year-to-Date Performance: 85.52%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 130

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is one of the best-performing AI stocks heading into 2026. On November 18, Reuters reported that Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) has launched a major upgrade to its AI chatbot. This suggests that the company is aiming to compete more strongly in the consumer AI market, where it has lagged competitors.

The company has introduced a new free app that uses the latest version of its Qwen large language model. The app is currently available in China as both a mobile app and a website. Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) said it plans to release an international version later.

The company said that with a single command, the chatbot can “generate a full research report and automatically produce a polished, multi-slide PowerPoint presentation in seconds.”

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) pointed out that the Qwen App, which has entered public beta testing, is being described as “the best personal AI assistant with the most powerful model.”

This marks a strategic shift for Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA). Previously, the company focused mainly on enterprise customers through its cloud services and had not invested much in developing its ChatGPT-style consumer app.

This move also responds to strong competition in China’s AI market after DeepSeek started a price war by prioritizing low-cost AI compute and app development, which has pressured other companies.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is a Chinese multinational technology company focused on e-commerce, retail, AI, digital media and entertainment, cloud, and technology.

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