The "Second Derivative" AI Stocks: 3 Companies That Could Thrive Beyond Chips in 2026
- - The "Second Derivative" AI Stocks: 3 Companies That Could Thrive Beyond Chips in 2026
Geoffrey Seiler, The Motley FoolDecember 29, 2025 at 1:20 PM
0
Key Points -
SoundHound has a huge opportunity in voice-powered AI agents.
Salesforce stock looks washed out, and it also has a strong potential growth driver with AI agents.
Once deemed an AI loser, Snowflake has been hitting on all cylinders.
10 stocks we like better than SoundHound AI ›
While semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure stocks have powered the market for the last few years, 2026 could finally be the year that AI software stocks break out.
Let's look at three AI software stocks to own in 2026.
Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now, when you join Stock Advisor. See the stocks »
1. SoundHound AI
SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) made a name for itself as an AI voice company, but it's taking that leadership and transforming itself into a voice-led agentic AI company. Given the importance of AI agents understanding what you say and your intent, its voice technology could give it a strong edge in the space.
Artist rendering of AI in brain.
Image source: Getty Images.
The company grew at a rapid pace this year, and its revenue more than doubled through the first nine months of 2025. The company has established a strong presence in the automobile industry, where its technology is used for more advanced voice assistants, as well as the restaurant industry to help with voice-operated ordering systems. Meanwhile, its acquisition of Amelia gave it the technology to create its agentic AI platform, as well as customer relationships in the healthcare, financial services, and retail industries.
SoundHound is also improving its gross margins and expects to soon generate positive EBITDA. Its Amelia 7 platform with AI agents is still being rolled out, and the company looks well-positioned for both next year and beyond.
2. Salesforce
Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) has been bucketed as a potential AI loser, but as the importance of AI having clean, organized data comes to the forefront, it is actually in a solid position, given that its platform serves as the system of record for customer service, marketing, and front-office sales for a large number of companies around the globe. Meanwhile, its recent acquisition of Informatica, which specializes in gathering data from different sources and merging them into a single record, only solidifies its position as a source of truth for a company's data.
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) company is also embracing agentic AI with its Agentforce solution. It has integrated Agentforce throughout its product suite, including Slack and Tableau, and to date, Agentforce has seen strong uptake. The product's annual recurring revenue (ARR) surged 330% last quarter to $540 million. Salesforce's introduction of a flexible pricing model has helped drive the growth, as customers can choose from both seat-based and consumption plans.
Meanwhile, Salesforce's stock is cheap, trading at a forward price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of below 5.5 times, a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of around 20 times, and a price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio of below 0.65. A positive PEG ratio under 1 generally indicates that a stock is undervalued.
3. Snowflake
Another company playing an important role as a gatekeeper of data is Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW). The company operates a cloud-based data warehousing and analytics platform whose architecture separates storage from compute. Customers can store data in its data lake and then access it across different cloud computing providers. The benefit of this is that customers are not tied to a single cloud vendor, and they can quickly and securely access and share data in real time. However, once a customer's data is in the Snowflake system, it's difficult to move, and thus the platform is very sticky.
Meanwhile, Snowflake is also embracing AI agents. With Snowflake Intelligence, customers can now build their own AI agents that can access data securely from Snowflake. At the end of last quarter, it had over 1,200 customers using its Snowflake Intelligence solution, and a $100 million AI revenue run rate.
Despite originally being viewed as a potential AI loser, the company has been hitting on all cylinders. Last quarter, its revenue jumped 29%, and the company saw strong growth both from existing and new customers. It added a record number of new customers in the quarter, while its net revenue retention rate came in at a robust 125% over the past 12 months. Those are the metrics of a company poised to be an AI winner both in 2026 and beyond.
Should you buy stock in SoundHound AI right now?
Before you buy stock in SoundHound AI, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and SoundHound AI wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $509,470!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,167,988!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 991% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 196% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
See the 10 stocks »
*Stock Advisor returns as of December 29, 2025.
Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Salesforce. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Salesforce, Snowflake, and SoundHound AI. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Source: “AOL Money”
