These rising AI companies are defying the odds to shape the future of technology. But should you buy them today? The answer might surprise you.
Many artificial intelligence (AI) stocks soared in the first few months of 2023, only to dip in the summer. The enthusiasm sparked by ChatGPT buckled when the government’s inflation-fighting efforts ran into another difficult stretch. But that wasn’t the end of the AI story by any means. Indeed, a few AI experts are back in the driver’s seat, showing strong business results and/or rising stock prices as 2023 nears its end.
I’m here to take a look at a couple of AI stocks that seemed to lose their spark earlier this year, but have fresh pep in their step right now. Are these stocks priming the pump for 2024, or are they overdue for another price correction?
I don’t know yet, but let’s have a look. AI specialists C3.ai (AI -3.84%) and SoundHound AI (SOUN -6.09%) saw strong stock price gains in November. Where will they go from here?
The brainchild of Tom Siebel of Siebel Systems fame can be polarizing.
The stock has gained 26% in November and a stunning 173% year to date, but it’s not all wine and roses. C3 is still trading 75% lower since entering the public stock market almost exactly three years ago. Even so, it still looks expensive in many ways. The company isn’t profitable in any meaningful way, so valuation ratios of most varieties are utterly meaningless. And if you turn to the always-there price-to-sales ratio, that’s a lofty figure at 13 times C3’s trailing revenue.
This stock is frustrating by the numbers, but it does have a solid narrative going on. C3’s expertise is in optimizing business procedures with the help of advanced machine learning algorithms. When this company’s products work as advertised, its customers achieve superior business results with the help of tailor-made AI analytics for that specific industry, or a certain business process, based on real-world data collected by that company’s ordinary operations.
AI-based business process optimization is a vibrant niche with many rivals, but most can’t match C3’s deep expertise and solid foundation in business process insights. Again, CEO and co-founder Tom Siebel also founded Siebel Systems, now a popular customer relationship management (CRM) platform provided by business software giant Oracle. Siebel founded C3 four years after Oracle’s $5.8 billion buyout offer for Siebel Systems, applying the lessons learned from a successful CRM platform in another form of computer science.
Some investors worry about C3’s modest sales growth during a global AI boom. However, business-to-business services often react slower than consumer-facing platforms when the market tenor changes. These AI systems must pass each potential client’s testing, earn a slice of the customer’s technology budget, and more. Meeting these requirements takes time. So C3 is pushing the envelope by investing more than its quarterly gross profit into sales and marketing — and even more than that into research and development (R&D).
This company isn’t sitting on its robotic hands, but pushing the growth-oriented pedal to the metal with both feet. That’s why C3 operates at a loss, and management expects to continue this expensive strategy for the foreseeable future.
So C3.ai is not every investor’s cup of ones and zeros due to its lack of current profits.
It’s hard to say whether C3’s stock deserves a higher price today. Its investors face a high-risk, high-reward situation that could simply burn through a lot of cash — or create an industry giant. The only safe bet here is that C3’s stock will be volatile in 2024 and beyond. Jumping aboard the C3 bandwagon could be a good idea, but you should be prepared for a big loss if the cash-crunching business plan doesn’t work out in the long run. Be careful out there.
If you thought C3 was volatile, you ain’t seen nothing yet. SoundHound has soared 48% higher this month but still stands 85% below the all-time highs of May 2022.
On the upside, the recent gain was the result of promising business results. SoundHound’s third-quarter results — reported three weeks ago — blew Wall Street’s consensus estimates out of the water. The company’s voice control and conversational customer service solutions are gaining traction, with giants such as White Castle and Krispy Kreme joining SoundHound’s customer list in recent months.
Whether you know it or not, you may have interacted with SoundHound’s voice control systems in your car, at a drive-thru window, or in one of those automated menu systems over the phone. The company’s Houndify platform employs machine learning to interpret your commands and generative AI to craft a conversational response.
Like C3, SoundHound can look cheap or expensive depending on your expectations. The company is unprofitable. Its quarterly sales are lumpy and unpredictable (one large contract won or lost sends ripples across SoundHound’s income statement). Traditional value investors stay far away from stocks like these, and SoundHound is too unpredictable for many growth seekers, too.
Yet the stock trades at a modest 2.3 times trailing sales, and that revenue is growing fast. Smoothing out the jagged top line, SoundHound’s sales totaled $38.2 million over the last four quarters. A year ago, the same revenue equation worked out to $26.8 million. That’s a 43% year-over-year jump, and that level of high-octane growth often inspires much higher price-to-sales ratios. Remember, C3 trades at 13 times trailing sales.
I like what SoundHound is doing, and it’s hard to hate the stock’s bargain-basement sales-based valuation ratio. If you handle C3’s high-priced stock like a cup of nitroglycerin, you could think of SoundHound as a bottle of gasoline. It’s volatile, potentially both explosive and risky, but much safer to handle than a sample of liquid dynamite.
So yes, please be careful with this stock as well, but it makes sense to take a somewhat bigger bite in this case. SoundHound’s risk-reward equation is not quite as scary as C3’s.
