Shopify Inc. (SHOP) Upgraded to ‘Buy’ as AI Innovations Drive Growth and Margin Expansion

We recently published a list of Top 10 AI News Stories For The Weekend. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Shopify Inc. (NYSE:SHOP) stands against other top AI news stories for the weekend.

Last week, Sam Altman, CEO of AI company OpenAI, expressed his confidence that US President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will support the artificial intelligence sector, ensuring the United States and its allies continue their lead. Altman told US broadcaster Fox News that AI technology needed massive infrastructure support and that Trump would be ideal in providing it.

READ ALSO: 15 AI News Updates That Broke The Internet and 15 Buzzing AI Stocks Making Headlines 

“We need to build that here and we need to be able to have the best AI infrastructure in the world to be able to lead with the technology and the capabilities. I believe President-elect Trump will be very good at that”.

-Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO

Trump has already picked out Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Sacks as his AI and Crypto czar, stating that Sacks will ensure the legal framework for the token has “clarity” to empower the crypto industry to “thrive”. Trump’s decision to appoint Sacks demonstrates his industry-friendly stance toward emerging technologies.

“David will focus on making America the clear global leader in both areas. He will safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship”.

-Trump said in a post on his social network, Truth Social.

Meanwhile, SpaceX founder Elon Musk emerged as a key advisor to Trump after the elections. Musk has also been appointed to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is responsible for streamlining government bureaucracy.

Musk having a potential political influence in the administration, particularly when it comes to AI, could get some people worried. However, prominent figures such as Sam Altman say they aren’t. Altman brushed off suggestions that Musk, the owner of X, would use legal tactics to shut down competitors. Matt Calkins, CEO of Appian, is also confident about Musk’s influence on the Trump administration, stating how the influence is positive because Musk “deeply” knows artificial intelligence.

The growing momentum of AI, underscored by recent government developments, has brought attention to other key players in the sector, including Anthropic, a leading AI-focused company. Anthropic is collaborating with Amazon to develop one of the world’s most powerful AI supercomputers. The mega-project, codenamed “Project Rainer,” will be five times larger than the cluster used to build Anthropic’s current most advanced model. As reported by WIRED, the announcement was made at the company’s Re:Invent conference in Las Vegas by Matt Garman, CEO of AWS. Once it is completed, the supercomputer will be the world’s largest AI machine featuring hundreds of thousands of its latest Trainium 2 AI training chips.

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.

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).

Shopify Inc. (SHOP) Upgraded to 'Buy' as AI Innovations Drive Growth and Margin Expansion

An enthusiastic customer completing a purchase and receiving an order confirmation via one of the companies online sales channels.

Shopify Inc. (NYSE:SHOP)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 56

Shopify Inc. (NYSE:SHOP) is a subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that integrates artificial intelligence through tools like Shopify Magic, automating tasks and enhancing personalized shopping experiences for merchants. An underrated AI play, one Wall Street analyst recently stated that the company is winning with artificial intelligence. On December 6, Loop Capital analyst Anthony Chukumba upgraded Shopify to “Buy” from Hold and increased the price target to $140 from $110.

According to the analyst, investors are underestimating Shopify’s use of artificial intelligence in serving merchants. From personalized response recommendations to instantly generated emails and even internally using it in areas such as customer support, sales, and human resources, Shopify is doing so much with AI. This is why the firm considers AI as a key driver of margin expansion and long-term growth for the company.

“Thus, we believe Shopify will be able to grow its revenue at a much faster rate than its operating expenses for the foreseeable future, which will result in operating and free cash flow margin expansion and a higher valuation”.

-Loop Capital analyst Anthony Chukumba

Overall, SHOP ranks 6th on our list of top AI news stories for the weekend. While we acknowledge the potential of SHOP 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 time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SHOP but 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.