Top AI stocks to watch in 2026

The companies on this list build the chips, cloud platforms and software that artificial intelligence runs on, or embed AI into products people already use. They range in scale from NVIDIA Corporation ($NVDA) at $5.36T to SoundHound AI, Inc. ($SOUN) at $2.89B – a gap of more than 1,800×.

How we built this list: We selected these companies based on their industry and ordered them by market capitalisation. Prices are updated daily, and the list and supporting content are reviewed roughly every quarter. All data is sourced from Stake. This list isn't a recommendation and isn't ordered by suitability.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Source: Stake market data. Figures in US$. Data updated as of 5 October 2026.

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1. NVIDIA ($NVDA)

NVIDIA (NVDA) share price over the last year: started at US$185.54, ended at US$238.90, a change of +28.8%. Range over the period: high US$238.90, low US$165.17. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$238.90 · Daily: 2.1% · Market cap: US$5.64T · Sector: Technology · Industry: Semiconductors

NVIDIA Corporation ($NVDA) makes the chips and computing platforms that much of the AI industry runs on. Its data centre business supplies the graphics processing units (GPUs) and networking hardware that power large-scale AI training and inference workloads. The CUDA development platform – a programming environment that runs across all NVIDIA GPUs – sits underneath hundreds of software libraries and toolkits that developers use to build AI applications.

Beyond data centres, $NVDA addresses gaming through its GeForce GPU line, professional workstation graphics through Quadro and NVIDIA RTX products, and automotive through platforms for autonomous and electric vehicle systems. CEO Jensen Huang leads a company of roughly 42,000 employees. That breadth across compute, graphics and automotive means AI infrastructure is central to the business, but not the entirety of it.

2. Apple ($AAPL)

Apple (AAPL) share price over the last year: started at US$256.69, ended at US$332.87, a change of +29.7%. Range over the period: high US$341.07, low US$245.27. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$332.87 · Daily: -0.2% · Market cap: US$4.87T · Sector: Technology · Industry: Consumer Electronics

Apple Inc. ($AAPL) makes hardware that reaches into everyday life from multiple angles. The iPhone, Mac, iPad, AirPods, Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro all come from the same company.

Services form the other significant part of the business. The App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, iCloud, Apple News+, payment services and advertising give $AAPL a recurring revenue layer tied directly to the devices it produces.

CEO John Ternus leads 166,000 employees. $AAPL handles chip design and software development in-house, so the hardware and the software running on it are built together rather than sourced separately.

3. Alphabet ($GOOGL)

Alphabet (GOOGL) share price over the last year: started at US$250.43, ended at US$346.47, a change of +38.4%. Range over the period: high US$402.62, low US$236.57. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$346.47 · Daily: 0.9% · Market cap: US$4.18T · Sector: Technology · Industry: Software & IT

Alphabet Inc. ($GOOGL) sits at the intersection of AI and everyday life through Google Search, YouTube, Android, Maps and the Chrome browser – products that reach billions of people daily. Its Google Cloud segment brings AI tools to enterprise customers through the Vertex AI platform, Gemini models, and Google Cloud Platform's infrastructure and data analytics services.

The Other Bets segment covers healthcare-related services and internet ventures that sit outside the core Google business. Sundar Pichai leads the company, which employs more than 190,000 people across its operations.

4. Microsoft ($MSFT)

Microsoft (MSFT) share price over the last year: started at US$528.57, ended at US$525.18, a change of −0.6%. Range over the period: high US$542.07, low US$352.83. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$525.18 · Daily: 1.5% · Market cap: US$3.84T · Sector: Technology · Industry: Software & IT

Microsoft Corporation ($MSFT) runs three broad business lines: productivity software through Office, LinkedIn and Dynamics; cloud infrastructure through Azure, GitHub and Nuance; and consumer-facing products like Windows and Xbox. Under chief executive Satya Nadella, $MSFT has woven AI into nearly all of them – Azure hosts the compute that many AI applications run on, and GitHub Copilot embeds code-generation assistance directly into developer workflows.

With 223,000 employees, the company's scale means AI features reach a wide installed base of enterprise and consumer customers rather than relying on a single product. That breadth is why $MSFT appears on lists like this one: its AI exposure touches cloud, productivity tools and developer infrastructure at the same time.

5. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ($TSM)

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) share price over the last year: started at US$302.40, ended at US$485.80, a change of +60.6%. Range over the period: high US$485.80, low US$275.06. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$485.80 · Daily: 2.8% · Market cap: US$2.10T · Sector: Technology · Industry: Semiconductors

Chip manufacturing and chip design are distinct businesses. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ($TSM) operates on the manufacturing side, producing integrated circuits as a foundry for customers across the technology industry. Its process portfolio covers advanced fabrication nodes, silicon stacking and packaging solutions, as well as support for a broader design ecosystem. The end markets it supplies include AI, high-performance computing, automotive, communications and consumer electronics.

6. Meta Platforms ($META)

Meta Platforms (META) share price over the last year: started at US$715.66, ended at US$741.90, a change of +3.7%. Range over the period: high US$777.59, low US$525.72. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$741.90 · Daily: 1.9% · Market cap: US$1.85T · Sector: Technology · Industry: Software & IT

Meta Platforms ($META) runs two distinct businesses under CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Family of Apps segment covers Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads – products that connect people across mobile, desktop and wearable devices.

Reality Labs focuses on virtual, augmented and mixed reality, with Meta Quest headsets as its consumer hardware line and the Meta Horizon Store as its software and content platform. The company is building AI through both sides of the business, from how content surfaces across its apps to the experiences available in its virtual environments.

7. Tesla ($TSLA)

Tesla (TSLA) share price over the last year: started at US$453.25, ended at US$378.73, a change of −16.4%. Range over the period: high US$489.88, low US$298.32. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$378.73 · Daily: 2.2% · Market cap: US$1.46T · Sector: Consumer Discretionary · Industry: Cars & Auto Parts

Manufacturing is at the core of what Tesla, Inc. ($TSLA) does. The company designs and makes fully electric vehicles – the Model 3, Y, S, X and Cybertruck – alongside energy storage hardware including the home-scale Powerwall and the grid-scale Megapack. Its energy segment also covers solar generation systems, from design through to installation. Elon Musk leads $TSLA's 134,785-person workforce.

8. AMD ($AMD)

AMD (AMD) share price over the last year: started at US$203.71, ended at US$631.75, a change of +210.1%. Range over the period: high US$633.91, low US$190.95. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$631.75 · Daily: -0.3% · Market cap: US$1.03T · Sector: Technology · Industry: Semiconductors

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ($AMD) designs chips that power everything from gaming PCs to server rooms. Its product line runs from the Ryzen processors inside consumer laptops to the EPYC chips that handle heavy workloads in data centres – and increasingly, AI accelerators competing for space alongside those CPUs.

$AMD's data centre segment is where the AI angle sits most clearly. That division covers GPUs, AI accelerators and a range of programmable chips designed for the kind of parallel processing that machine-learning workloads demand. The embedded segment adds another layer, with chips built into industrial and communications hardware rather than consumer devices. Lisa Su leads the company, which employs around 31,000 people worldwide.

9. Palantir Technologies ($PLTR)

Palantir Technologies (PLTR) share price over the last year: started at US$179.53, ended at US$189.40, a change of +5.5%. Range over the period: high US$207.18, low US$107.27. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$189.40 · Daily: 0.3% · Market cap: US$453.58B · Sector: Technology · Industry: Software & IT

Palantir Technologies ($PLTR) started out building software for counterterrorism – tools that help agencies find patterns buried in vast datasets, from signals intelligence to informant reports. That original platform, Palantir Gotham, remains central to its government work.

On the commercial side, Palantir Foundry acts as an operating system for an organisation's data, pulling it into one place so teams can actually work with it. Apollo sits underneath both, handling the continuous delivery of updates and security patches across cloud environments without disrupting critical operations.

The newest platform, AIP, is where $PLTR's AI ambitions take shape. It is designed to connect large language models and other AI tools directly to an enterprise's own data and workflows, rather than running in isolation. Alexander Karp leads the company, which employs 4,429 people.

10. SoundHound AI ($SOUN)

SoundHound AI (SOUN) share price over the last year: started at US$18.25, ended at US$5.88, a change of −67.8%. Range over the period: high US$21.40, low US$5.70. Source: Stake market data. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Price: US$5.88 · Daily: 0.7% · Market cap: US$2.84B · Sector: Technology · Industry: Software & IT

SoundHound AI, Inc. ($SOUN) sits at the voice end of the AI landscape. The company builds technology that lets businesses run natural, spoken conversations with their customers – across drive-thrus, phone lines, car dashboards, smart TVs and kiosks.

Its products carry names like Smart Answering, Smart Ordering and Dynamic Interaction, each aimed at a different kind of customer-service interaction. Under CEO Keyvan Mohajer, the 954-person company has pushed into automotive, television and internet of things (IoT) markets, where its voice AI is designed to handle multiple languages with speed.

$SOUN's agentic platform, OASYS, takes things further – it's a self-learning system that organisations can use to build AI agents capable of completing transactions and workflows on behalf of staff or customers, not just fielding questions.

Common questions

How do I invest in AI stocks in New Zealand?

Every company in this list trades on U.S. exchanges, so you'll need a brokerage platform with access to U.S. markets. You search the ticker and place an order through the platform. The stocks are priced in USD, meaning the NZD/USD exchange rate affects both the cost of buying in and what any proceeds are worth in NZD terms.

What are the key risks of AI stocks?

Some of the key risks include sector concentration – nine of the ten companies in this list sit within the Technology sector. High-growth technology companies can be more sensitive to changes in interest rate expectations, since much of their value can reflect expectations about future earnings. Regulatory scrutiny of large technology platforms is an ongoing consideration for several of these businesses, and competitive dynamics within AI can shift quickly as new products and models emerge. For NZ investors, a stronger NZD reduces the local-currency value of U.S.-denominated returns even when the underlying share price holds steady.

How do the hardware and software sides of AI differ?

The companies here occupy different layers of the AI landscape. On the hardware side, $NVDA, $TSM and $AMD design and manufacture the chips and computing infrastructure that power AI workloads. $MSFT, $GOOGL, $META, $PLTR and $SOUN operate in software – building platforms, tools and applications that sit on top of that infrastructure. $AAPL focuses on consumer devices and digital services, while $TSLA designs and manufactures electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

Disclaimer

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. When you invest, your capital is at risk. You should consider your own investment objectives, financial situation, and particular needs before making an investment decision. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may receive back less than your original investment. As always, do your own research and consider seeking appropriate financial advice before investing.

This is not personal financial advice nor a recommendation to invest in the securities listed. Any advice provided by Stake is of general nature only and does not take into account your specific circumstances. Trading and volume data from the Stake investing platform is for reference purposes only, the investment choices of others may not be appropriate for your needs and is not a reliable indicator of performance.

Please refer to hellostake.com/pricing for the fees that apply. When you trade securities priced in another currency, currency conversion fees may apply and movements in the exchange rate may affect your returns.

Stake Desk

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This article combines AI and human review from our analysts to bring you accurate, informative investing content at speed. For questions or suggestions, contact stakedesk@stake.com.au.