Artificial Intelligence (AI) has received incredible attention this year due to the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Because of its profound capabilities, ChatGPT has successfully captured the imaginations of a swath of audiences from technology enthusiasts and investors to social commentators. This has led to the rise of AI stocks with triple digit returns.
Now investors need to seriously contemplate what could be next in the AI revolution. Searching for exposure to this hot sector, investors have poured into publicly listed tech companies that have invested in AI breakthroughs.
If a stock-picker were looking to make killer returns on an investment in AI stocks, they should focus on companies leading innovation in the artificial intelligence space. Below is a list of 3 companies who have received triple-digit returns in 2023 so far.
C3.ai (AI)
C3.ai (NASDAQ:AI) has had a rocky business history. Having trotted its business model down paths of carbon emissions, energy transition, and “internet of things” (IoT) technologies, C3 has finally landed on AI enterprise software, hence ‘ai’ being attached to its core name.
Operating both domestically and internationally, C3.ai provides an application development and runtime environment, dubbed the ‘C3 AI Platform’, to provide enterprises with the tools to develop and deploy their own AI applications. The company also provides turnkey AI application solutions to serve clients in a variety of industries. Riding the tidal wave taking AI stocks to new heights, C3.ai’s share price has risen nearly 202% year-over-year.
Still, the enterprise software company’s financials are where investors should focus their attention. Although the company has managed almost triple revenues over the past three years, its profitability has wavered. As an example, in fiscal year 2021, C3 AI was able to increase its earnings per share from a loss of -$1.19 to -$0.51, but in its most recent fiscal year 2023 report, C3 AI reported a larger EPS loss of -$1.53. As investors study C3 AI, they should watch closely how the company continues to scale the volume of its subscriptions and increase profitability. Despite these aspects, C3 AI has made a significant turnaround and has an amazing growth story.
Symbotic (SYM)
Although Symbotic, Inc. (NASDAQ:SYM) is well-known for creating automation technology, its use of AI software throughout its products coupled with the strong rise in its share price year-to-date, gives the company a spot on this list. Symbotic is an automation technology company that operates an automation-based product movement technology platform, and the company helps retailers and wholesalers upgrade their traditional warehouses by installing fleets of autonomous robots powered by AI software.
Symbotic has increased revenues by more than 6x since 2020, and from CY’2021 to CY’2022, the company has increased gross margins from 4% to nearly 17%. Consistent top-line and profitability improvements have resulted from both an increase in product deployment and greater efficiency with which those products were deployed. As CFO Thomas Ernest mentioned on Symbotic’s most recent earnings call, as more products are deployed, Symbotic expects an increase in predictable recurring revenue, and this would ultimately continue to expand their margins.
Symbotic’s share prices are up 228% year-to-date, and it is likely the company’s shares continue moving upward as their product deployments scale.
MicroStrategy (MSTR)
MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), quite known for being one of the largest corporate holders of bitcoin, is primarily an enterprise analytics software company employing AI-based workflow tools. In particular, MicroStrategy’s analytics tools help improve the efficiency of users’ workflows by providing them with helpful analytics and visualizations.
MSTR also provides a cloud security solution, MicroStrategy Cloud Environment, to offer always-on threat monitoring and enable rapid analytics development and deployment. The analytics are based on machine learning models, which work behind the scenes to proactively detect data trends, outliers and anomalies, ultimately equipping users with the timely insights to drive action.
Recently, MicroStrategy announced a multi-year partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) to integrate MicroStrategy’s analytics into Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service. This makes it one of those AI stocks with triple digit returns potentially in the future.
MSTR’s shares are up almost 127% year-to-date. To increase revenue growth, MicroStrategy will need to continue to scale and expand its high-margin, AI-driven product suite, and despite some recent impairment losses related to the company’s digital assets (cryptocurrencies), MicroStrategy’s AI business remains intact and has ample room to grow.
On the date of publication, Tyrik Torres did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.