Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is expected to officially reach a trillion-dollar valuation in February 2020.

Investors Put $18.5B in AI, Alphabet to Hit Trillion-Dollar Landmark

The National Venture Capital Association reported that 1,356 AI-related companies in the U.S. raised $18.457 billion in 2019, more than ever in the past, even though overal venture capital investment was down, according to a venturebeat.com story. The appetite for investing in AI is still strong, and may continue apace for established companies.

In 2018, the 1,281 AI companies raised $16.8 billion, according to the Q4 2019 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

Last year, three AI-related companies reached a $1 trillion valuation⏤starting with Apple, followed by Amazon and Microsoft⏤and this year Google parent company Alphabet is expected to hit that golden number in market valuation in its first quarter 2020 report on February 3, according to a story on theverge.com.

While institutional investment in AI may be dropping off for start-ups, it appears that individual investors may still be bullish on large AI-related companies. U.S. News & World Report’s investment reporter John Divine lauds 10 AI stocks, for instance, because of expectations of strength and growth. He says the trillion-dollar companies all relied on AI to get there. Here is his list:

  1. Nvidia (semiconductor company)
  2. Alphabet (Google)
  3. Salesforce (CRM)
  4. Amazon (online sales)
  5. Microsoft (cloud computing & technology)
  6. Baidu (China’s leading search engine)
  7. Intel Corp. (semiconductor company)
  8. Twilio (AI)
  9. Facebook (social media, etc.)
  10. Tencent (China’s social media, AI, etc.)

Among those, most investors may be least acquanted with Twilio, which U.S. News describes as:

“…Twilio – which offers cloud-based application programming interfaces (APIs) allowing developers to build voice, video and messaging features into their apps – still remains a wildly popular, useful and fast-growing service.”

Microsoft, one of the best known companies, is expected to partner with OpenAI, making it more valuable as a future investment:

“Anyone who wants a slice should own the top AI companies today – and that means owning MSFT, one of the few tech giants not currently being targeted by U.S. regulators.”