AppLovin (APP) Surges as AI-Powered Ad Platform Exceeds Expectations

We recently published a list of 10 AI Stocks Surging on News and Analyst Calls. In this article, we are going to take a look at where AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) stands against other AI stocks surging on news and analyst calls.

The interest in Chinese AI startup DeepSeek remains strong, and the company itself is actively fueling its momentum. In the latest news, the company has announced that it is going to make its models’ code publicly available. The move reaffirms its commitment to open-sourcing artificial intelligence.

Posting on social media platform X, the company said that its “tiny team” will open-source 5 code repositories next week. They describe the move as “small but sincere progress” and promise to share “with full transparency.”

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“These humble building blocks in our online service have been documented, deployed and battle-tested in production.”

-DeepSeek

Code repositories are storage locations where developers may see and contribute to software development. They are typically published in centralized hosting services like Microsoft’s GitHub. While they may contain key company assets, DeepSeek’s V3 and R1 models were open-source which implied anyone can see or modify them for free, leading to the rapid rise and success of the startup.

“As part of the open-source community, we believe that every line shared becomes collective momentum that accelerates the journey…Daily unlocks are coming soon…No ivory towers – just pure garage-energy and community-driven innovation.”

-DeepSeek

Unlike many US rival firms that tend to lean toward closed-sourced models, the company has been unique given its commitment to open-source. DeepSeek’s Liang Wenfeng said last July how the firm did not prioritize commercializing its AI models. He further noted that there was soft power to be gained from open source.

“Having others follow your innovation gives a great sense of accomplishment. In fact, open source is more of a cultural behavior than a commercial one, and contributing to it earns us respect”.

-Liang Wenfeng

With the new open-source code, DeepSeek will be providing the infrastructure to support the AI models that it has already publicly shared. Earlier, the company had also published a study with founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng one of the 15 co-authors. It discussed “native sparse attention”, which is designed to improve LLM efficiency in processing large data sets.

For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. The hedge fund data is as of Q4 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).

AppLovin (APP) Surges as AI-Powered Ad Platform Exceeds Expectations

A close-up of a mobile device, showing an advertiser reaching out to a consumer via a software-based platform.

AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 95

AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) provides a leading marketing platform powered by AI technology. On February 20, Loop Capital raised the firm’s price target on the stock to $650 from $450 and kept a “Buy” rating on the shares.

The analyst told investors in a research note that some investors are skeptical about Applovin’s stock price appreciation and high sell-side targets, but the firm is hard-pressed to “punch serious holes” in the bull thesis. The firm further stated that advertisers are continuing to give out positive feedback, and therefore it views the momentum continuing for the business.

The company recently reported an earnings beat and strong guidance in Q4, 2024, leading to positive comments from several analyst firms.

“Blowing past expectations, the company proved its AI-driven platform is monetizing better than even bulls anticipated. With ad revenue surging and margins expanding, it’s clear that advertisers are prioritizing AppLovin’s targeting tools over competitors.”

-Goldman Sachs.

Overall, APP ranks 6th on our list of AI stocks surging on news and analyst calls. While we acknowledge the potential of APP as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than APPbut that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.