According to Rallies Arena, a public tracker that gives AI models money and watches how they invest it, Visa (NYSE:V) is among the top stock holdings of ChatGPT. Visa recently made the news after billionaire Bill Ackman shared his bullish views on the stock in his investor letter.
Ackman calls Visa one of the highest-quality businesses in the world. The company takes a small cut on every transaction without major risks. It just processes payments and collects a fee, which makes it a toll-taker business with massive margins.
AI a Threat for Visa?
Ackman, in his latest letter to investors, pushed back on fears that stablecoins or AI shopping agents could hurt Visa. He argues stablecoins mostly help in places where cards don’t work well already, like cross-border payments, not in everyday consumer spending where Visa dominates.
Bulls said AI is not a threat to Visa, as the company is partnering with AI firms to tap into the trend of stablecoins and automated shopping. Earlier this year, Visa launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform (VSP), a new platform that lets financial institutions and payment providers mint, move, and manage stablecoins on Visa’s infrastructure. It also partnered with OpenAI to enable secure Visa payments within agentic commerce, positioning the company as a first mover into a trend where people will automate their shopping through AI agents. Despite the rising demand for alternative payment methods, bulls argue Visa will always remain at the forefront, as companies and consumers alike would prefer a secure and tried-and-tested payment process like Visa’s over untested alternatives.
Visa recently posted strong quarterly results, where revenue rose 14% year over year and EPS rose 11% and came in ahead of expectations. Payment volume rose 10%. All four of the company’s value-added services segments posted revenue growth of over 20% in each of the last four quarters.
The stock trades at a forward P/E of 27, which is below the 10-year average of 30.1. The company has nearly two decades of dividend growth streak and a payout ratio under 26% of free cash flow, which means more potential for growth.
Risks
Bears point to the Credit Card Competition Act, which could force large card companies to offer alternative routes. More than half of Visa’s revenue comes from the US, increasing routing competition could pressure swipe fees.
While we acknowledge the risk and potential of V as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than V and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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