3 Unstoppable Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks to Buy for 2026

Few trends have had as big an impact on the stock market over the past two decades as artificial intelligence (AI). It has the potential to improve productivity in various industries, ultimately leading to increased profits for shareholders.

In the short term, there have been only a handful of big winners, but that hasn’t stopped investors from bidding up the stock prices of companies that could well benefit from AI in the future.

As a result, many AI stocks today appear overvalued and risky. Investors should be willing to dig into the details to determine whether a company is worth buying and holding. But good long-term values ​​still exist among AI stocks.

Here are three potentially unstoppable artificial intelligence stocks to buy for 2026.

1. Figma

Figma (FIG 0.59%) provides cloud-based design software focused on creating user interfaces and improving user experience development. The company has gone to great lengths to integrate AI into its products, with CEO Dylan Field saying: “…the first prompt is just a creative starting point, not the final destination.” » AI is an enhancement to Figma software, not a replacement.

The company launched Figma Make in July, just before its IPO. It allows users to quickly generate design prototypes with natural language prompts. So far, it has seen strong adoption, especially among its largest customers.

The company also acquired AI image and video generation company Weavy, which it will integrate into a new product, Figma Weavy, to provide images and videos for use in mockups.

Management continues to expand its product line and features, leading to very high net revenue retention. Last quarter, existing Figma customers spent approximatelyIapproximately 31% more on its services than during the same period of the previous year. This indicates a strong competitive advantage, as the company’s software offers advanced features while benefiting from significant switching costs. That said, the introduction and adoption of AI-based tools hurt its gross margin, which fell to 86% in the third quarter from 92% a year ago.

Figma’s market cap of $18.3 billion is significantly lower than the $20 billion it had in 2022 when Adobe attempted to acquire the company. This deal was blocked by regulators due to antitrust concerns, but it provides a good baseline on the company’s value.

Although new competition from Adobe could hamper Figma’s growth, the company has proven resilient and remains innovative. Its enterprise value of $17.1 billion is about 13 times analysts’ revenue forecasts for 2026. That’s a fair price to pay for a company with strong growth and an excellent competitive advantage.

2. Alibaba

Alibaba Group (BABA 2.75%) is perhaps best known for its huge e-commerce business in China, but it is also the largest cloud provider in China. And it’s investing in its own large foundational language model, which it provides to developers looking to create new AI software.

The company’s e-commerce business is under pressure. ByteDance’s Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, has carved out a substantial market share through its social commerce platform. And PDD Holdings’ Temu is taking a stake in AliExpress from Alibaba, which specializes in exporting to customers outside China.

Alibaba is fighting back by investing in what it calls “rapid commerce,” which aims to deliver items in hours instead of days. This investment weighed on profitability, but it is showing promise with rapid growth and improvement in the unit’s profitability.

Management is focusing cash flow from retail to cloud computing and AI. It deployed around 120 billion yuan ($17.2 billion) in capital spending over the past 12 months for AI and cloud infrastructure. This paid off with accelerated revenue growth, up 34% year-over-year last quarter. AI revenue is growing at triple-digit rates, driven by accelerated adoption of AI products.

Investors looking at Alibaba’s recent earnings might view the company as slow-growing and with declining profitability, but that would overlook the company’s long-term potential. Alibaba can maintain its e-commerce market share in China, and its profitability will quickly recover as it scales up its fast delivery operations.

At the same time, the company is experiencing very rapid and strong growth in its cloud computing segment, which still has significant operating leverage as it strives to add capacity as quickly as possible. With an enterprise value to forward earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) ratio below 17, the stock currently appears to have great value.

3. Semiconductor Manufacturing in Taiwan

Semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan (TSM 2.57%)also known as TSMC, is the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer. It accounted for 71% of all spending on third-party semiconductor foundries in the third quarter.

This huge market share comes from its advanced technology. If a company wants to build one of the most advanced chips in the world, it will need to work with TSMC. Not only can it provide the technology, but it can also offer it at a better price than its competitors.

This is partly due to its ability to produce higher yields of viable chips per silicon wafer and partly due to its size. As a result, TSMC benefits from a virtuous cycle in which it wins large customer contracts, invests more in research and development and equipment to advance its capabilities, and then wins even more large contracts.

The company has benefited greatly from increased spending on artificial intelligence, but AI chips represent only a small portion of its total business. That said, technology could be driving its growth over the next few years, as management expects AI-related revenues to grow at an average annualized rate of 40% between 2025 and 2029. They surpassed that level in the first three quarters of 2025 (as expected), but CC Wei, the company’s CEO, said during the third-quarter earnings conference call that “the numbers are insane.”

Management’s forecast of overall annualized revenue growth of 20% through 2029 appears reasonable. And it should be able to maintain stable gross margins even as it introduces new technology, since it charges 10% to 20% more for new wafers of 2nm chips while also raising the price of its older technology.

It should be able to produce strong operating leverage over time, leading to earnings growth above that 20% rate. This makes TSMC stock, with its forward price-to-earnings ratio of 25, very attractive at the moment.