With artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly taking over our daily lives, many investors are wondering which shares to buy to benefit from the boom. It may be too late to get in on overvalued tech giants like Nvidia or Meta. Plus, most smaller AI outfits like Anthropic and DeepMind aren’t publicly traded.
But there’s still a ton of cheap AI-focused companies trading on the stock market. The trick is identifying the small guys before they take off. So which companies are quietly building groundbreaking AI tech in the background?
Consider these two lesser-known tech innovators with promising products in the pipeline.
Tempus AI
Tempus AI (NASDAQ:TEM) is an American health technology company specialising in AI-enabled precision medicine. It aims to make diagnostics and personalised treatment decisions more data-driven and efficient.
This kind of tech is critically important to patients suffering from terminal diseases like cancer. Just ask founder Eric Lefkofsky, who started the company after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The company combines AI and data analytics to provide precision medicine services for oncology, cardiology, radiology, and psychiatric disorders. Beyond just diagnostic, it also focuses on personalised care pathways.
At $75 a share, it doesn’t look particularly cheap, but it’s down almost 30% from its 52-week high. And like many rapidly expanding tech start-ups, it’s yet to turn a profit. That makes it hard to value, which is risky. If it keeps racking up debt without turning a profit, it could go bankrupt.
That said, revenue has exploded from $188m to $1.11bn in just five years. So it’s doing something right.
Encouragingly, major US investment firm ARK Invest is optimistic about the company’s prospects. Both its Genomic Revolution ETF and ARK Innovation ETF hold the stock, with weightings of 9.78% and 4.82%, respectively.
Serve Robotics
Serve Robotics (NASDAQ:SERV) builds autonomous sidewalk delivery robots. Yes, those cute four-wheeled robot boxes that are the postmen of the future. I’m not sure it’s the future I want, but here we are – so may as well capitalise on the progress.
The robots use Nvidia’s latest AI combined with groundbreaking Ouster REV7 LiDAR sensors to calculate and navigate optimal delivery routes. They’re designed to handle real-world urban sidewalk environments, navigating potholes, curbs, uneven sidewalks, and pedestrian traffic safely.
Not only that, their average delivery time is comparable to or faster than human couriers. As I sit here wondering where my pizza delivery is, it’s safe to say these robots will be in high demand.
Following a commercial partnership with the Uber Eats platform, the company aims to expand deployment of up to 2,000 robots by the end of 2025.
A key risk, of course, is that a robot goes rogue, injures somebody, and the company gets hit with a massive lawsuit.
The bottom line
Tempus’s AI tech looks highly promising, as it continues to expand the boundaries of personalised healthcare. By coupling high-throughput genomics and molecular data with powerful AI tools, it aims to transform patient care globally.
Meanwhile, Serve Robotics exemplifies a practical, scalable application of AI to provide an everyday service.
To me, they both look like compelling AI stocks to consider before they become massive household names. And that’s not all – there are many other eye-catching AI stocks to consider on the market these days.
