In this article, we discuss the future of artificial intelligence, including 10 predictions about 10 industries.
Artificial intelligence continues to hold center stage at the stock market as investors pour billions into companies that are leveraging the latest technology to solve problems and boost productivity across the business world. A recent report on AI spending by investment bank Citi forecasts that AI-related infrastructure spending by tech giants will surpass $2.8 trillion through 2029, up from the earlier estimated $2.3 trillion, amid aggressive early investments by hyperscalers and a growing enterprise appetite. This spending continues despite a brief crisis of confidence sparked by the debut of the cheaper DeepSeek AI model by China and lingering market concerns over the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump, per a report by Reuters.
Mike Dolan, a senior finance journalist for news agency Reuters, recently underlined that the so-called Magnificent Seven – US tech companies that now make up a record 36% of the S&P 500’s market value – had seen their stock prices more than double over the past two years, after rebounding a whopping 60% from the troughs of this year. Dolan opined that artificial intelligence is obviously the megatrend of the moment, where scale is everything, and US tech giants are driving the spending, while investors are scrambling to get on board an already overcrowded train. He warned that if AI were a bubble, as some experts have put it, the economy might pop when the bubble bursts.
These bullish and bearish views on AI have dominated the headlines in financial newspapers for close to three years. In a world where information is power, perhaps it would be helpful for investors to weigh real-world AI data against the opinions of prominent billionaires and successful CEOs who have a track record of being ahead of the curve in these matters.
Our Methodology
These trends and predictions were picked from a careful assessment of the artificial intelligence (AI) sector from various credible online resources. The details of each AI prediction are mentioned alongside a discussion around one of the top firms in the industry to provide readers with some context for their investment decisions. We have ranked these companies based on the number of hedge funds having stakes in these companies as of Q2 2025, as per Insider Monkey’s database.
These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. 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).
The Future of Artificial Intelligence: 10 Predictions for 10 Industries
10. Coursera Inc. (NYSE:COUR) – Education Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 30
In late August this year, Bill Ackman, the billionaire chief of Pershing Square, took to social networking platform X to announce that a new private school would be opening in New York City in September. Ackman called the new school, Alpha, the first truly breakthrough innovation in K-12 education that he had seen since the Kipp Academy. Ackman highlighted that 200 years ago, K-12 education was a teacher and a blackboard in front of 25-30 kids. Today, per Ackman, the only thing that had changed was that the blackboard may be a whiteboard. Meanwhile, the world was in the midst of an AI revolution, he noted.
Ackman backed the AI embrace by Alpha, where a typical school day consisted of two hours of dedicated AI personal tutoring customized for a child’s academic program, four hours of leadership and life skills, and no homework. However, parents had access to daily real time data on how the child was doing.
In light of this AI-led disruption, investors might consider paying more attention to Coursera Inc. (NYSE:COUR), a firm that operates an online educational content platform that connects learners, educators, organizations, and institutions. On October 7, the company announced integration with ChatGPT. Per the firm, this partnership marked the first time an online learning platform had been directly embedded in ChatGPT — making educational content more accessible to hundreds of millions of learners worldwide. Every week, more than 800 million people use ChatGPT, with one of the most common use cases being learning.
9. AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVAV) – Defense Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 31
Earlier this year, Palmer Luckey, the billionaire founder of Anduril Industries, an American defense technology firm, outlined in an interview to news platform CBS that the defense industry was changing, with AI-led firms transforming the sector into a space where defense products were more important than defense contractors. Per the interview with CBS, for decades, defense contractors had dominated the defense industry. Typically, these companies presented an idea to the Pentagon. If the Pentagon liked it, the government paid for the company to develop it, even if it went over budget or over schedule.
Luckey started Anduril to flip that procurement structure on its head. The difference, he explained, was that contractors were paid to do the work whether or not they succeeded. However, per Luckey, a products company had a very different mindset, where investors commit their own money and time, rather than using taxpayer money for this purpose.
One of the most prominent companies actively integrating AI with defense products is AeroVironment Inc. (NASDAQ:AVAV). It designs, develops, produces, delivers, and supports a portfolio of robotic systems and related services for government agencies and businesses in the United States and internationally. On October 3, BTIG analyst Andre Madrid raised the price target on the stock to $415 from $300 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The analyst noted that a meeting with the management had highlighted several product lines with the potential to become greater than $1 billion franchises, including Switchblade, Red Dragon, P550, FE-1, and BADGER.
8. Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) – Software Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 78
In mid September 2025, Alexandr Wang, the billionaire founder of Scale AI and the Chief AI Officer of tech giant Meta, appeared on tech podcast TBPN and said that teens dreaming of lucrative tech careers should seize on the opportunity to hone their artificial intelligence skills by immersing themselves in the growing number of AI-powered code generation tools. Wang compared the current moment of rapid technological advancement to the early days of the computer revolution, when people like the Bill Gates of the world capitalized on being early adopters of computers and software. That moment is happening right now — and if you are, like, 13 years old, you should spend all of your time vibe coding, he advised.
Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR), a publicly traded company that specializes in software platforms for big data analytics, has taken this advice to heart. The firm has become one of the biggest success stories of the AI boom by integrating AI into a suite of software products designed for government and commercial purposes. Last month, the firm announced that it had entered a partnership with the UK government that would see an investment of up to £1.5 billion in the UK to deliver new jobs, growth and national security.
7. Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) – Travel Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 92
In July, Mark Cuban, the billionaire American businessman and television personality, told Fortune magazine that AI fluency would be a baseline skill in the near-future. To be a successful entrepreneur, he added, business owners needed to know how to work with AI agents to make their businesses more efficient and cut costs. Cuban said he sees a reality where AI will be a baseline skill like email or Excel in five years time. The billionaire further added that how businesses leveraged AI technology would dictate their success moving forward. He predicted that in 10 years, more people would be working for themselves with the help of AI assistants, which would turn solo founders into full teams.
Companies like Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG), which provides travel and restaurant online reservation and related services worldwide, have anticipated these trends, and are ahead of the curve when it comes to AI adoption. Per latest reports by news platform BBC, Booking Holdings has partnered with OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT, to allow travel planners to do more through the popular AI chatbot. A recent survey by ABTA, a travel association based in the UK, found out that around 8% of travellers were using AI to plan their holidays – up from 4% last year – with younger holidaymakers more likely to use the technology when planning their trips.
6. Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) – Retail Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 105
Earlier this year, business magazine Fast Company reported that Marc Lore, the billionaire entrepreneur and former executive of a popular retailer, was preparing his food tech company, Wonder, for a public market debut in the first quarter of 2028. Wonder recently closed a $600 million funding round, led by Google Ventures, which pushed the valuation of the startup to $7 billion, according to Bloomberg. Lore said the company is creating an AI-powered superapp that blends meal delivery, personalized nutrition, smart restaurant systems, and brick-and-mortar locations into one seamless ecosystem. He added that the end goal is to own every consumer touchpoint in the mealtime experience across physical, digital, and logistical channels.
Lore previously worked for Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT), which operates as a retail firm. Late last month, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told The Wall Street Journal that he believed AI will remove some jobs and reshape the workforce. He added that it was very clear that AI was going to change literally every job. Per the report, the retail company plans to maintain its head count of about 2.1 million global workers over the next three years, but the types of jobs will be changing.
5. Intuitive Surgical Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG) – Healthcare Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 107
In June this year, Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle Corporation, said during the second quarter earnings call that Oracle Health was building AI agents into its EHR system that would be the envy of the technology world. He added that Oracle was working on agentic AI across its business lines, such as healthcare, and aims to add customers from other tech companies that got out of the AI business. Ellison further highlighted:
“Oracle was using the most modern application generators and AI database technology to build their application suite, adding AI and analytics using OpenAI, xAI, Google, Llama and other popular LLMs on top of that application data. No other company is even attempting to build the depth and breadth of AI-based applications like us.”
According to media platform, Becker’s Healthcare, voice-activated AI will reportedly be a big part of the new EHR Oracle Health is developing.
Intuitive Surgical Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG), a firm that develops, manufactures, and markets products that enable physicians and healthcare providers to enhance the quality of and access to minimally invasive care, is another company that is aggressively integrating AI into the healthcare business. The firm recently introduced updates to the popular robotic surgery system named da Vinci 5. The system enables surgeons on two different sides of the world to collaborate on a surgery, pointing to a future where advanced surgeries can reach patients globally without the need for travel.
4. The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) – Entertainment Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 111
In early June, Mark Cuban, the billionaire American businessman and television personality, said on social networking platform X that within the next 3 years, there will be so much AI, in particular AI video, people won’t know if what they see or hear is real. He added that this will result in an explosion of face to face engagement, events and jobs. Cuban referred to the phenomenon as the Milli Vanilli effect, pointing to the 1980s pop duo who lost their careers after it was revealed they had lip-synced their hit songs. Cuban has gone viral for his comments as new AI video tools offered by tech giants can create high-resolution videos with synchronized voices, sound effects, and music based on just a short prompt.
The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS), which operates as an entertainment company worldwide, is at the forefront of the changing entertainment landscape. Last year, the firm announced that it would be forming a new unit to coordinate the use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and mixed reality, as the media giant explores applications across its film, television and theme park divisions. Various divisions within Disney are also exploring applications for augmented reality.
3. Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) – Automotive Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 115
Earlier this year, Ronald Baron, the billionaire founder of Baron Capital, appeared on news platform CNBC and claimed that Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), an automotive and clean energy company, would reach $5 trillion in valuation within the next decade. He added that he believed Tesla CEO Elon Musk had even more ambitious goals in mind and wanted to make the automaker a $30 trillion company. Baron, a long-term investor in the automaker, has been consistently bullish on the autonomous driving and robotaxi initiatives of Tesla. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also been vocal about his ambitions to integrate self-driving software into Tesla vehicles for years. Right now, Tesla owners can choose to subscribe to Full Self-Driving (FSD) in certain geographic regions only.
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) remains a trend-setter in the automotive AI space. An analyst at Morgan Stanley has an Overweight rating on the stock with $410 price target. In a recent investor note, the analyst said Tesla Q3 deliveries of about 497,000 beat the sell-side consensus expectation of 443,000 by 12% and came in at the high end of the buy side expectation range of 450,000-500,000. The strong Q3 delivery beat was likely driven by a demand pull-forward ahead of the expiry of EV consumer tax credits and marked the first year-over-year increase in deliveries this year, per the investor note by the analyst.
2. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) – Finance Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 167
Earlier this year, Morningstar Chairman Joe Mansueto said during a university event in Chicago that financial models based on artificial intelligence were a long way from being able to compete with market research firms. Mansueto pointed to a recent study in which Vals AI, a startup he advises, examined the accuracy of financial analysis performed by more than 20 AI models. The results fell short of passing grades, he said. Per the billionaire, while the performance of these models would improve over time, AI’s current capabilities in finance were exaggerated, and had a long way to go. The rise of AI models that are getting better all the time meant analysts would have to keep running faster, Mansueto said. But he added that the humans also brought qualitative elements to their work that would continue to be important.
Despite these observations from one of their own, financial services firms like Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) have invested heavily into AI in recent years. Visa recently announced the continuation of its expansion into agentic commerce with enhancements to the Visa Intelligent Commerce platform, an artificial-intelligence-based payments solution that allows AI agents to shop and make purchases. Visa introduced the Intelligence Commerce platform in late April, providing developers with application programming interface resources for AI platforms and agents to interact with the company’s payment network.
1. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) – Technology Industry
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 235
In early July, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang appeared on news platform CNN to warn that while artificial intelligence would significantly boost workplace productivity in the coming years, it could lead to job losses if industries lacked innovation. NVIDIA provides graphics, computing and networking solutions. Huang said he believed that as long as companies came up with fresh ideas, there was room for productivity and employment to thrive. But without new ambitions, productivity drives down, he said, potentially resulting in fewer jobs. Nvidia, which briefly reached $4 trillion in market value, is among the companies leading the AI revolution. The technology employed by the chipmaker has been used to power data centers that companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google use to operate their AI models and cloud services.
An analyst from Goldman Sachs recently raised the price target on NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock to $210 from $200 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. He updated the company’s model to reflect its strategic investments and partnerships with OpenAI and others. He also sees significant upside to 2026 estimates for Nvidia. The company has a strong runway of growth from core customers, plus upside from non-traditional customers, contends the analyst.
Overall, NVDA ranks first on our list of The Future of Artificial Intelligence: 10 Predictions for 10 Industries.
While we acknowledge the potential of NVDA 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 NVDA and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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