How I'm thinking about AI stocks — mid 2026
My current framework for the Big 7 AI names and what I'm watching.
These are my personal views. Not financial advice.
The structural thesis
The Big 7 AI names (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, Tesla) aren't all the same bet. I separate them into:
Infrastructure picks — Nvidia is the clearest. If AI training and inference scale, they win. The risk is a competitive moat question at the chip level and geopolitical exposure to Taiwan.
Platform picks — Microsoft (OpenAI integration into Azure and Office), Alphabet (Gemini + search moat + TPU infra), Amazon (AWS + Bedrock). These are bets that the cloud incumbents capture AI spend as a layer on top of existing enterprise relationships.
Application picks — Meta is interesting here. Their open-source model strategy (Llama) and ad-targeting improvements from AI are separate value drivers that the market tends to conflate.
What I watch
- NVDA earnings: GPU demand tells you real AI capex vs. hype
- Hyperscaler capex guidance: When Azure/AWS/GCP raise capex, it flows to Nvidia and to inference infrastructure broadly
- AI product adoption metrics: Copilot seats, ChatGPT revenue, Gemini integration depth — real usage vs. headlines
Where I'm positioned
Long Nvidia as the primary AI infrastructure bet. Long commodities (silver especially) as a parallel infrastructure play — AI data centers are driving significant silver demand for electrical connections.
More updates as my thinking evolves.