Dan Ives is one of the most followed personalities on Wall Street. Ives leads global technology research for Wedbush Securities, and can often be found touting bullish stories and predictions about artificial intelligence (AI) on financial media such as CNBC or Bloomberg.
In late December, Ives took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to highlight his top 10 AI picks for 2025. Below, I’m going to explore three of his software picks and assess whether this seems like a good opportunity to stay informed about stocks.
That shouldn’t be a surprise Palantir Technologies(NASDAQ:PLTR) earned a position on Ives’ list of top ideas. The main tailwind fueling Palantir comes down to one thing: the company’s latest software suite, called the Palantir Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP). Since its launch in April 2023, AIP has helped Palantir leap into the private sector and remain a competitive option among many other data analytics tools flooding the software market.
Additionally, AIP has also helped Palantir form a number of strategic alliances with major technology and consulting firms, among others Oracle, Metaplatforms, Microsoft, AmazonAnd Booz Allen Hamilton. Many of these partnerships are specifically aimed at integrating AIP into cloud infrastructures within the Department of Defense (DOD) and other military-related agencies. In turn, Palantir has unlocked new ways to accelerate its historically unwieldy government operations.
While I’m personally optimistic about Palantir’s long-term potential, I also have to admit that its shares have become overwhelmingly expensive. Last year, Palantir was the best performing stock in the S&P500 index (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC)after the company’s shares rose 340%.
While I think 2025 should be another great year for Palantir, I would caution investors against buying into the stock during a pronounced period of momentum.
The next company I’m going to explore is Salesforce(NYSE: CRM). While Salesforce is best known for its sales and marketing tools, the company also owns and operates several other platforms that span areas such as data analytics and workplace productivity.
In recent years, large language models (LLMs) and machine learning have garnered much of the AI talk. However, during the company’s latest earnings call, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made it clear that the company’s next wave of growth will revolve around agentic AI.
Agentic AI will use generative AI protocols such as LLMs and machine learning applications, but will not require a human to operate as these digital agents become “smarter” and more independent over time. Salesforce’s agentic AI platform is aptly called Agentforce and is already being used by some of the world’s largest enterprises, including IBM, FedExAnd Accenture.
Right now, Microsoft’s CoPilot is the most mainstream AI offering on the market. Given limited competition and increasing spending on AI infrastructure, I am optimistic about Salesforce’s ability to gain greater market share in the agentic AI space and believe the company has robust prospects.
Image source: Getty Images.
Data infrastructure company Snowflake(NYSE: SNOW) went public in 2020 around the same time as Palantir. But unlike Palantir, investors cheered Snowflake’s public debut in historic fashion. Furthermore, when AI emerged as the next megatrend in late 2022, it was logical to think that Snowflake would be an obvious beneficiary.
However, reality collided with high expectations, and eventually investors began to wonder whether the Snowflake story was all hype. Ultimately, poor investor sentiment surrounding Snowflake resulted in Frank Slootman stepping down as CEO, leaving the company with very little say in its AI capabilities and whether the technology would ever become a core focus in the company.
Although the past year has been a difficult one for Snowflake, the company is gradually starting to turn things around. Product revenue is growing 29% year over year and the company boasts an astonishing net revenue retention (NRR) of 127% – indicating that customers are not only staying on the Snowflake platform, but also spending more.
According to the company’s CFO Mike Scarpelli, Snowflake’s core AI platform, Cortex, is “still in its early stages.” The way I interpret Snowflake’s current situation is that the company has been able to improve key performance indicators without AI making a major contribution yet. To me, this implies that as AI becomes more of a selling point for Snowflake, it should further strengthen the company’s financial profile.
While Snowflake isn’t out of the woods yet, I’m cautiously optimistic about investing in the stock.
Consider the following before purchasing shares in Palantir Technologies:
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John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Adam Spatacco holds positions at Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool holds positions in and recommends Accenture Plc, Amazon, FedEx, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Oracle, Palantir Technologies, Salesforce, and Snowflake. The Motley Fool recommends Booz Allen Hamilton and International Business Machines and recommends the following options: long January 2025 calls of $290 on Accenture Plc, long January 2026 calls of $395 on Microsoft, short January 2025 calls of $310 on Accenture Plc, and January 2026 short calls of $405 on Accenture Plc Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Software Names to Buy in 2025, According to Dan Ives, originally published by The Motley Fool
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