Should You Forget Palantir and Buy These 2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks Instead?
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Palantir nologies (PLTR 3. 54%) is one of the hottest artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, trading up an impressive 393% over the last year. To put it another way, if you had...
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July 8, 2025
04:05 AM
The Motley Fool
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Palantir nologies (PLTR 3. 54%) is one of the hottest artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, trading up an impressive 393% over the last year
To put it another way, if you had invested $10,000 in Palantir a year ago, your investment would be worth $48,500
Palantir offers AI-powered data analytics, and its price has taken off largely because of the success of its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) services
It's a fitable and growing, which can make for an attractive investment and that has caught the attention of the market
As a result, it's trading at a sky-high price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 584
Growth stocks often have high valuations, but even allowing for that, Palantir stock is still an extremely expensive investment right now
Instead of paying a hefty premium to own Palantir, you might want to consider these two growing AI stocks with much more favorable valuations
Image source: Getty Images
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made it that he wants Meta Platforms (META -0. 13%) at the forefront of the AI revolution, and he's sparing no expense to make it happen
He was rumored to be offering signing bonuses of $100 million to lure away select employees at OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT
The focus on attracting top talent has been successful so far
On June 30, Meta started Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), which will house its AI foundation models, ducts, and re jects
The team includes recent hires Alexandr Wang (ex-CEO of Scale AI, which Meta acquired for $14. 3 billion last month), Nat Friedman (former CEO of Github), and Daniel Gross (co-founder of Safe Superintelligence Inc
Meta is also heavily in its AI infrastructure
In May, it announced that it would boost its capital expenditures to between $64 billion and $72 billion in 2025, a significant increase from $37. 3 billion in 2024
There have also been recent reports that Meta is seeking to raise $29 billion from private capital firms to build AI data centers
Meta can afford to spend this kind of money because of its strong financials
Revenue was $42. 3 billion in the first quarter of 2025, a 16% year-over-year increase
Net income was $16. 6 billion, a 35% increase
It has an ample $70. 2 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, compared to $28. 8 billion in long-term debt
It's fair to wonder if Meta's AI investment will go the way of its much-maligned investment in building the metaverse
But the giant is getting more results out of AI than it ever did from the metaverse
Its AI assistant, Meta AI, quickly reached 1 billion active monthly users
In addition, AI is a better fit for how Meta makes money -- advertising, which accounts for 98% of its revenue
Meta already offers AI tools that advertisers can use to imve ad performance
By the end of next year, it aims to vide fully automated AI ads
If Meta's AI tools help es get more out of their marketing budgets, that could help it continue to imve its revenue numbers
With its ven success and ambitious AI goals, Meta strikes me as a stronger AI investment than Palantir
Trading at a P/E ratio of 28 at the time of this writing, Meta is much cheaper than Palantir
It's also the second-cheapest stock of the Magnificent Seven, as you can see in the table below
PE ratio isn't everything, but it's an indicator that Meta could be a better value than many of its peers
SoundHound AI SoundHound AI (SOUN 2. 66%) is a young company that develops voice AI solutions
It offers voice platforms and agents that companies can use to automate tasks and reduce costs, with 25 languages currently available
What's exciting SoundHound is how its ducts can benefit companies across a range of industries
Restaurants can use voice AI for drive-thru and kiosk ordering
Auto companies incorporate SoundHound for in-car voice assistance
Healthcare companies can use SoundHound's Amelia AI agents for patient support, including managing appointments and getting treatment information
Those are just a few of many use cases for SoundHound's ducts
SoundHound is still a relatively small company in the early stages of its development
It's not fitable yet -- while it nically posted a fit in the first quarter of 2025, that was due to an adjustment in the value of contingent liability acquisitions, meaning it's not something that's replicable
Revenue growth was the big story from that first-quarter earnings report, increasing 151% year over year to $29
Total cash and cash equivalents were $246 million, and the company doesn't have any debt
Even though SoundHound is currently losing money, its balance sheet is in pretty good shape
Another positive sign is a $1. 2 billion order backlog, lasting for six years, which averages out to $200 billion per year
That should allow it to continue increasing its revenue
SoundHound is a volatile company, and it's trading at a price-to-sales (PS) ratio of 40
It's expensive, but still nowhere near as expensive as Palantir, which trades at a P/S ratio of 107
And the AI voice market has tremendous growth potential -- re company SNS Insider expects it to grow by 32. 5% annually until 2032
Although SoundHound is a high-risk investment, in a best-case scenario, this AI stock could skyrocket in value
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors
Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors
Lyle Daly has positions in Nvidia and Tesla
The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Palantir nologies, and Tesla
The Motley Fool recommends the ing options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft
The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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