2 No-Brainer Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks Owned by Warren Buffett Right Now

Warren Buffett isn't known for his tech investing. But right now, two of his largest positions are benefiting big from rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) services. Most people don't think of these companies as AI businesses, but when you dig deeper, few companies stand to benefit as much from the AI revolution as these two Buffett stocks.

This company is fueling the AI revolution

Few companies are as directly exposed to rising demand for AI than Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). To understand why this is, zoom out and look at how the AI industry functions.

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It is very unlikely that the current AI revolution would be taking place if not for the massive amount of distributed cloud infrastructure built worldwide over the last decade. That's because developing, training, and then executing AI services typically requires a huge amount of compute power. Without cloud infrastructure, each AI business would need to build its own infrastructure, adding considerable expense. This would mean that only the largest companies could afford to develop AI solutions, greatly limiting innovation.

Cloud computing also makes it easier for end users to adopt AI. According to Oracle, "the cloud is becoming the go-to way to embed AI into business applications." Just as cloud infrastructure makes it easy to modularly spin up compute power, it also makes it easy to modularly consume AI services.

The critical role of cloud networks for AI simply isn't going away anytime soon. That's great news for Amazon, considering its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division holds a 31% global market share for cloud infrastructure. That's nearly as much as the next two competitors combined.

With a strong lead on the competition, expect AWS to grow in tandem with the overall AI industry, providing a direct benefit to Amazon shareholders like Buffett, whose holding company owns 10 million shares worth around $2.2 billion.

Is Apple secretly the king of artificial intelligence?

When it comes to AI, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) isn't an obvious pick. The company specializes in producing hardware like iMacs, MacBooks, and iPhones, not specialized AI software. Sure, Apple has its Siri and Apple Intelligence platforms that deliver AI features to its hardware users. But the company hardly looks like a full-fledged AI business.

That understanding, however, is flawed, as it doesn't consider Apple's dominant position in the value chain.

Many of you reading this own an iPhone. If you subscribe to an AI service like ChatGPT, roughly 15% to 30% of those fees you pay goes to Apple. That's because ChatGPT is downloadable to iPhones via the App Store, which Apple controls.

If you use ChatGPT on an iPad, iMac, or MacBook and have downloaded the app via the App Store, those subscriptions also are directly making Apple money.

According to The Verge, "Apple is reportedly expecting chatbots and LLMs to start tempting people away from using traditional search engines." This could result in exploding demand for AI chat services. If those services are consumed using Apple products, Apple will be able to profit from the AI revolution, even without introducing any new AI products or services itself.

This is all good news for Buffett, whose holding company owns 300 million shares of Apple worth roughly $75 billion -- his biggest position by far. Investors looking to bet on the AI revolution in a more clever way than simply buying shares of AI service or infrastructure providers should give Apple a hard look.

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*Stock Advisor returns as of April 5, 2025

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Ryan Vanzo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, and Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.