In this article, we will take a look at the 10 best predictive analytics stocks to invest in now.
Data is at the forefront of many inventions today and is the primary ingredient of innovation. Of the many branches of data usage, predictive analytics is garnering immense traction, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence. Predictive analytics is the use of data, statistics, modeling, and machine learning to forecast, predict, and plan future events. There are different types of predictive analytics including regression analysis, time-series analysis, and machine learning algorithms.
According to a report by Fortune Business Insights, the global predictive analytics market was valued at $14.71 billion in 2023. The global predictive analytics market is expected to grow to $95.3 billion by 2032 from $18.02 billion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.1%. The report attributes the growth in the industry to the growing investments in data by the government and large corporations followed by IoT and AI integrations. The use of predictive analytics is bifurcated into multiple segments including life sciences, automotive, retail, energy, telecom, and healthcare, to name a few.
Startups Disrupting the Predictive Analytics Space
There are a range of startups in the predictive analytics space that are revolutionizing the industry. One such name is Pecan AI. The automated predictive analytics platform is developed and designed intricately to meet the needs of data scientists. Data scientists can use the platform to build powerful predictive AI capabilities and machine learning models that drive business impact. Data scientists do not need coding or data science skills to make use of the platform. The platform is used by a range of companies including Johnson & Johnson, SciPlay, Hydrant, Kenvue, Proper Cloth, and DME Acquire. Earlier in January, the company introduced predictive generative AI to transform enterprises. Pecan AI also has partnerships with some of the largest tech corporations and platforms including Azure and AWS.
DataRobot is another leader in the predictive analytics industry that delivers revolutionary AI use cases for businesses. Its AI platform consists of core AI features such as generative AI, predictive AI, AI governance, AI observability, and AI foundation. The platform promises 83% faster deployment and secures nearly 1.4 billion predictions every day. Users can run models in minutes by skipping manual data preparation and cleaning. Additionally, the platform eliminates the need for repetitive coding, by streamlining feature discovery and defining elements of datasets automatically. Users can connect data from warehouses such as AWS and Azure into a singular workspace. Some of the predictive use cases facilitated by DataRobot include time series modeling, clustering and seasonality, cold start forecasting, nowcasting, and anomaly detection.
Now that we have studied the predictive analytics industry and some revolutionary startups, let’s take a look at the 10 best predictive analytics stocks to invest in now.
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Our Methodology
To come up with the 10 best predictive analytics stocks to invest in now we went through multiple reports on the internet, ETFs, and stock screeners. We then examined the analyst upside of each stock and ranked the ones with the highest percentage. Our list is in ascending order of the analyst upside as of November 11, 2024.
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 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
10 Best Predictive Analytics Stocks to Invest in Now
10. Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 9%
Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) ranks 10th on our list of the best predictive analytics stocks to invest in now. The IT company, headquartered in Ireland, specializes in information technology services and management consulting.
Accenture’s (NYSE:ACN) data and analytics help businesses gain powerful insights using data. The company also identifies use cases that align with users’ needs to offer advanced business solutions. On the artificial intelligence front, Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) allows users to develop reusable data products and build and scale AI to solve problems
The company started working on its predictive analytics capabilities over a decade ago and is now poised to become a leading AI and data company. Only recently, Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) completed the acquisition of Camelot Management Consultants, a SAP-focused management and technology consulting firm in Germany, that specializes in supply chain, data, and analytics. This will further enhance Accenture’s position in analytics-backed operations.
With generative AI bringing in $3 billion in bookings for Accenture (NYSE:ACN), the company is set to benefit immensely from the AI wave, especially in data and predictive analytics use cases. Analysts are also bullish on the stock and their median price target of $389 represents an upside of 9% from current levels, as of November 11.
ClearBridge Investments’ ClearBridge Large Cap Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“One of the keys to recent results and to delivering consistent, long-term performance through market cycles is how we think about risk. During our investment diligence process and ongoing work on portfolio holdings, we focus attention on how our thesis could be wrong and what the implications for stock valuation would be under these scenarios. Being sensitive to valuation is at the core of our portfolio construction efforts and prevents us from owning a particular stock or theme where we are not comfortable with the price. Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN), a new addition in the second quarter, is a good example. The stock was on our whiteboard for several years, and we remained patient until volatility created an attractive entry point. We further added to the position in the third quarter.”
9. Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 11%
Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC), previously referred to as Elastic Search, is a software company that offers solutions for search, logging, analytics, security, and observability use cases. The company was founded in 2012 in Amsterdam and is now headquartered in California, United States.
Using Elastic’s (NYSE:ESTC) capabilities in machine learning, users can automate a series of tasks such as anomaly detection and root cause analysis. In addition to that, users can also leverage ML to detect unusual behavior, identify threats, and enhance search experiences in data using predictions.
The company offers a variety of integrations that make connecting data to other data sources easier and faster. In addition to that, once data is placed in the ElasticSearch platform, entities and users can then extract important insights and visualize key points. The platform by Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) is also really flexible allowing users to collect, store, and visualize all sorts of data sets. Lastly, users can find patterns and use time series modeling to detect anomalies and forecast trends based on historical information.
Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC) is one of the best predictive analytics stocks to invest in. In the fiscal first quarter of 2025, the company generated $347 million in revenue, representing an increase of 18% year-over-year. Of this cloud revenue was $157 million, an increase of 30% from the same quarter in the last fiscal year. The company’s growth trajectory explains why analysts and hedge funds are long ESTC.
Artisan Partners’ Artisan Global Discovery Fund stated the following regarding Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“During the quarter, we initiated new GardenSM positions in Liberty Formula One, Elastic N.V. (NYSE:ESTC) and Onto Innovation. Elastic is a software company that specializes in search and data analysis solutions. Elastic’s search, observability and security solutions are built on the Elastic Search AI Platform, which thousands of companies use, including more than 50% of the Fortune 500. Customers use the software to gain visibility into their data, reduce mean-time-to-resolution and drive actionable outcomes. We believe the company will benefit from the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI). It provides a differentiated offering due to the combination of a unique pricing model based on consumption, products that handle numerous data types and volumes, and an open architecture environment that offers generative AI development flexibility.”
8. Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 12%
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) designs and develops a range of semiconductor products and is well known for making application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). It also provides infrastructure software products. Some of its products include cable modems, networking processors, and storage adapters. The company serves the data center, networking, software, broadband, storage, and wireless markets.
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) offers predictive analytics through its Automation Analytics and Intelligence platform. The platform offers workload automation solutions supported by a predictive analytics workload platform allowing entities to visualize data and manage complex workloads that facilitate the development of crucial business insights.
Some key features of the platform by Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) include cross-platform visibility, dynamic service level management, enhanced workload analytics, business monitoring, enhanced change control, and dynamic critical path discovery. All these features combined put AVGO ahead of its competitors.
Overall, Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) is a rapidly growing company with expertise in ASICs, infrastructure software, and data analytics, contributing to its ranking on our list. Analysts are also bullish on the stock and their median price target of $200 implies an upside of 12%, as of November 11.
Baron Opportunity Fund stated the following regarding Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“We continued to build our position in Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO), a global technology leader that designs, develops, and supplies a broad range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. As AI continues to proliferate, we believe hyperscalers – such as Meta, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Compute, and Amazon Web Services, to name just a few – will increasingly deploy custom accelerator chips for their AI workloads as they can be more cost-effective and energy-efficient than using NVIDIA’s general-purpose GPUs. Broadcom has a leading position partnering with hyperscalers to develop these custom chips, with its AI customer accelerator business up 3.5-times year-over-year in its most recently reported quarter, and a goal of at least $8 billion in custom accelerator revenues for this fiscal year. Additionally, VMware continues to perform better than expected as Broadcom is implementing its product simplification and subscription revenue model strategy. Further, its non-AI related semiconductor business, which tends to be more cyclical, is in the early stages of a recovery. Combined, all these factors will drive strong revenue and earnings growth over the next several years.”
7. International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 13%
International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) ranks seventh on our list of the best predictive analytics stocks to invest in. The technology company is headquartered in New York and was founded in 1911. The innovator is working to revolutionize AI automation and hybrid cloud solutions for businesses.
On the predictive analytics front, International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) is constantly working to improve its offerings. The IBM Watson studio helps data scientists and developers build and manage AI models and optimize decisions. The IBM SPSS Statistics platform enables users to garner actionable insights from their data. Moving forward, the IBM SPSS Modeler is a groundbreaking visual data science and machine learning solution that helps businesses speed up operational tasks for data scientists. In addition to its proprietary solutions, International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) offers advanced data and consulting that helps organizations transform into data-driven entities.
International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) is taking a step ahead in predictive analytics by venturing into predictive artificial intelligence by using statistical analysis and machine learning to identify patterns and predict behaviors.
Overall, International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) is leading the predictive analytics revolution by integrating AI allowing data scientists to make leaps in data-driven insights, which also contributes to its ranking on our list.
6. Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 14%
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is one of the best predictive analytics stocks to invest in. The technology company is an e-commerce giant that also provides streaming and data cloud services.
Amazon Web Services, its proprietary cloud platform, is a leader in predictive analytics. Users can leverage predictive analytics solutions on AWS to garner insights into consumer behavior and use them to predict future decisions and customer patterns. At AWS, users enjoy free and real-time access to data no matter where it is stored or originally placed. In addition to that, businesses can also make data-driven decisions by making the data available to the right people at the right time.
For predictive analytics use cases, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) leverages machine learning to offer deep insights into data on AWS Analytics. In addition to that, AWS offers built-in machine learning integration to facilitate the creation, training, and deployment of ML models.
Overall, in the third quarter of 2024, AWS grew its sales by 19% year-over-year to $27.5 billion. The growing use of AI and advanced data capabilities have been fueling AWS’s position, which explains its revenue growth. Analysts are also bullish on the stock and their median price target of $235 represents an upside of 14% from current levels.
Alphyn Capital Management stated the following regarding Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Amazon.com, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) continued growth is driven by its strong performance in AWS and advertising, which grew 19% and 20%, respectively. E-commerce growth moderated to 9.3%, likely due to softer consumer demand.
In previous letters, I mentioned how Amazon’s heavy investments in logistics and fulfillment suppressed margins for some time, but the company is now reaping the rewards of those earlier expenditures. European operations have been profitable for the second consecutive quarter, while North American operating margins have risen from pandemic lows to 5.3%. A key ongoing area of focus for Amazon has been reducing the “cost to serve”; this is beginning to show tangible benefits. In 2023, Amazon undertook a “regionalization” strategy, which divided the U.S. into eight distinct regions for fulfillment and transportation, with corresponding distribution centers in each. As I learned from an expert interview done by InPractise, “regionalization” has resulted in estimated shipping expenses dropping from $4.76 per unit to $4.50, and they are now approximately $4.26, with potential reductions of 2-3% annually. Interestingly, Amazon leaned on its third-party vendors (3P) to finance much of this strategy. It did so by requiring 3P vendors ship inventory to the multiple regional distribution centers, instead of to a single location as they used to do. Moreover, Amazon imposed penalties for failing to meet strict minimum and maximum quantities. In this way, Amazon used 3P inventory to expand its distribution capacity by around 24 million square feet, much of which it could use for its own 1P inventory. Clever strategy, but one wonders if this raises the risk of an eventual vendor backlash due to the added financial and logistical pressures on 3P sellers.
Like Alphabet, Amazon is investing heavily in its AWS infrastructure to support its growing AI business. In the first half of the year, the company spent $30.5 billion on capital expenditures, with plans to exceed that in the year’s second half. When questioned about this during the earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy emphasized that they are seeing significant demand for AI-related services, which he believes will become a “very large” business for Amazon.”
5. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 16%
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is one of the biggest technology companies in the world that ranks fifth on our list of the best predictive analytics stocks to invest in. It owns a range of products, including Google Search, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Cloud, and Waymo.
The company is a pioneer in data analytics and has been making use of predictive metrics in Google Analytics for years now. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) offers a range of solutions where predictive analytics comes into play. For example, its data science solution consists of a complete suite of data management, analytics, and machine learning tools that help entities garner insights from data and generate value. In addition to that, its marketing analytics solution helps companies significantly improve the overall customer journey and experience using crucial insights from existing data.
Businesses can use the myriad of tools available at Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) to simply develop machine-learning models that are able to recognize and identify patterns in datasets and provide crucial insights to entities. On the AI front, BigQuery, Google’s AI-optimized data analytics platform is developed to make data analysis easier and faster. Users can create large language models using enterprise data without having to copy or move data from elsewhere to someplace else.
Overall, Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) breadth of tools and expertise is challenging to replicate, positioning the company as one of the leaders in data management and analytics. Analysts also favor the stock and their median price target implies an upside of 16% from current levels, as of November 11.
Polen Capital Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Amazon were also top absolute detractors. Alphabet’s better-than-expected results were overshadowed by an adverse ruling related to the U.S. Department of Justice’s (“DoJ”) anti-trust case against the company. We expected an adverse ruling and are monitoring potential remedies recommended by the DoJ and subsequently ruled on by the judge. This will likely take a few years to play out; in the meantime, we see many mitigating factors that the company can pursue to protect its competitive position and growth. We trimmed our positions in Alphabet and Microsoft by 1.5% each to fund the purchase of Oracle. They both remain top five holdings at the new weights.”
4. SAP SE (NYSE:SAP)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 17%
SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) ranks fourth on our list of the best predictive analytics stocks to invest in now. The multinational software company is based in Germany. It specializes in the development of enterprise software to manage business operations and customers.
SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) is one of the leaders in predictive analytics. SAP Analytics Cloud is an end-to-end solution for analytics and planning allowing users to go into the depths of valuable data sources and mission-critical business applications. Users can also leverage artificial intelligence to automate reporting and discover hidden insights.
SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) is effectively bridging the gap between AI and data. Joule, SAP’s co-pilot that helps users get done with planning and analytics faster, is capable of sorting and garnering solid insights from existing data. Users can pose simple questions to the co-pilot and it presents them with data-driven intelligent answers. The assistant also helps users design data visualizations and develop data models with advanced calculations.
By the end of 2025, SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) plans to integrate generative artificial intelligence into all the major workflows of the SAP Analytics Cloud. The company hopes to leverage generative AI in the analytics cloud to build high-quality data and business context from SAP and non-SAP applications.
3. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 20%
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a technology giant that is spending generously on artificial intelligence and data. As the company ventures into new technologies and AI, it does represent a breakthrough stock that can influence the future.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is pioneering predictive analytics and we say that because of its strong data and machine learning capabilities. Azure Synapse Analytics is an analytics service that provides enterprise data warehousing and big data analytics. The platform can be run either serverless or with dedicated resources, giving users extended autonomy over their data use cases. Users can generate insights across data warehouses and big data systems. In addition to that, the platform also offers technologies for big data, log and time series analytics, data integration, and deep integration with other Azure services namely Power BI and AzureML.
The company is increasingly making use of artificial intelligence to unlock real-time insights. On May 21, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that users can now access real-time insights with AI-powered analytics in Microsoft Fabric, the company’s new unified data analytics platform. On this incredible feat, Tammy Wigg, Chief Data Analytics Officer at Aurizon, a user of Microsoft Fabric stated:
“With Microsoft Fabric, we’ve answered many of our questions about navigating future growth, to remove legacy systems, and to streamline and simplify our architecture. A trusted data platform sets us up to undertake complex predictive analytics and optimizations that will give greater surety for our business and drive commercial benefits for Aurizon and our customers in the very near future.”
Microsoft Fabric is a complete data platform that significantly improves real-time analytics to help users analyze high-volume data. These improvements have significantly increased the customer base for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).
2. Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 24%
Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) is a software company that offers an observability platform for developers. The platform helps developers build, test, monitor, optimize, and secure their software. Some of its notable customers include Samsung, Peloton, HashiCorp, and 21st Century Fox.
Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) introduced metric forecasts for predictive monitoring in Datadog in 2017, evidence that the company’s interventions within this industry are not recent. In early 2023, the company launched an integration in the Datadog platform. InsightFinder is a platform that leverages AI-backed predictive analytics to forecast incidents. The integration helped users find problems in the data swiftly and prevent production outages.
Fast forward to 2024, the company is leveraging machine learning to recognize anomalies, forecast to prevent bottlenecks, detect outliers, and identify root causes. In 2024, Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) was recognized as a leader in digital experience monitoring and observability in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant. DDOG’s digital experience platform encompasses monitoring and testing, product analytics, session replay, and real user monitoring.
Overall, the company grew its revenue by 26% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2024. Its CEO takes pride in its platform which helps customers observe and secure their mission-critical cloud applications while also being able to forecast events and manage operations. This explains why analysts are bullish on the stock. Their median price target of $152 represents an upside of 24% from current levels, as of November 11.
Baron Opportunity Fund stated the following regarding Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“In our view, the enterprise software winners will have to be better at delivering AI services and features than build-your-own AI tools, and they will have to use their incumbency or leadership advantages to ward off upstarts. We believe the winners will be the ones that have a well-established product development culture of innovation and iteration; differentiated proprietary, industry, and customer data; distribution advantages with large customer bases, successful go-to-market efforts, and key partners; well-designed workflows where AI improves the user interface, intelligent predictions/recommendations, and automation; and established always-on connectivity and feedback from their customers; among other things.
Here are a few examples of our software investments that we believe are AI winners: Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG), a cloud observability platform that the leading LLM providers are using today to monitor their AI apps; these AI customers are already driving nearly $100 million of annual recurring revenue for Datadog already.”
1. Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW)
Analyst upside as of November 11, 2024: 37%
Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) ranks first on our list of the best predictive analytics stocks to invest in now. The cloud-based data storage company was founded in 2012 and has experienced a solid growth trajectory since becoming one of the leading AI cloud services providers. The company has more than 10,200 global customers who benefit from its data storage, processing, and analytics products. Some of its notable customers include Adobe, AT&T, HP, Mastercard, PepsiCo, and Yamaha.
Snowflake Inc.’s (NYSE:SNOW) predictive analytics features leverage data from diagnostic and descriptive analytics to detect patterns that facilitate predictive data modeling for future trends. The company’s data cloud helps companies process semi-structured data and develop predictive modeling to enjoy faster speed and improved functionality without having to copy the data. In addition, its unified platform allows users to bring all cross-functional teams together in building scalable data preparation and model inference pipelines. Such is supported by the endless tools and features launched by Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) to expand data analytics capabilities in the cloud platform.
To advance its predictive analytics capabilities, Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) has forged partnerships and collaborations with key stakeholders in the industry. For instance, Tableau, a business intelligence and analytics software by Salesforce is integrated into Snowflake’s data cloud platform. The revolutionary integration allows users to store and analyze data on the same platform without extensive data transfers. More recently, in June, the company partnered with Neo4J, a graph database and analytics company. The partnership brings Neo4J’s native graph data science solution to Snowflake’s AI data cloud eliminating the need to move out data from the Snowflake ecosystem.
The company takes pride in its analytical capabilities and is confident its expertise is challenging to replicate. This positions Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) as a leader in data analytics and data modeling, contributing to its ranking on our list.
While we acknowledge the potential of SNOW to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that certain AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SNOW but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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