These days, it’s hard to go very long without hearing about the rapid development of AI technology. With the rapid rise in popularity of generative AI chatbots and machine learning-powered services, artificial intelligence is becoming a daily part of everyday people’s lives, as well as a driving force in the business world. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, for example, quickly gained a lot of attention. Within months of its public launch, the platform has become the fastest-growing consumer application in history, inspiring both awe and concern.
But AI technology is far from new, and chatbots are just one application of this advanced technology. In fact, almost every industry has been affected by AI, from healthcare to shipping, and this growth shows no signs of slowing down. Prominent technology experts such as Bill Gates predict the growing influence of AI technology, and current forecasts estimate that the global AI market is on track to reach half a trillion dollars by the end of the decade. Naturally, this growth attracts attention from investors. If you’re interested in adding some of the top AI companies by market capitalization to your portfolio, you might want to get to know the biggest players in the field.
1. Apple (AAPL)
Apple Inc. is a leading technology company and one of the largest artificial intelligence companies in the world. It is known for designing and manufacturing innovative consumer electronics, software and services, including the iPhone, Mac computers, iPad and Apple Watch. The company focuses on delivering technology with a strong emphasis on user experience, privacy and ecosystem integration.
On June 10, 2024, Apple announced “Apple Intelligence”, an artificial intelligence software that incorporates ChatGPT to bring a personal assistant-like feature that integrates with Siri and typing tools. These features were originally intended to launch with the upcoming iPhone and iPad 18.0 software overhauls, but will likely be delayed to iOS 18.1. Other features announced in June included the ability to lock and hide apps and schedule texts to be sent at a future time.
- Market capitalization: $3.34 trillion
- Headquarters: Cupertino, CA, USA
- Founded: 1976
- AI focus: Electronics, language and image processing
2. Microsoft (MSFT)
Microsoft has been a leader in end-user computing technology for nearly four decades and is currently the largest company in the world. Its popular Windows desktop operating system takes about 72% of the market share worldwide.
With a $10 billion investment in OpenAi in January 2023 and subsequent integration of its ChatGPT generative AI chatbot and Dall-E image generation into the Bing search engine and Edge browser software, Microsoft has asserted its position as one of the world’s leading companies in artificial intelligence. In June 2024, Microsoft announced a new class of computers with NPUs built into their processors to do more AI tasks without relying on cloud computing.
The company’s cloud infrastructure, Azure, has grown rapidly, driven by Azure AI app development. In July 2024, a DDoS attack caused an Azure outage, leaving it offline for more than 10 hours.
- Market capitalization: $3.37 trillion
- Headquarters: Redmond, WA, USA
- Founded: 1975
- AI Focus: Web Search, Image Generation
3. NVIDIA (NVDA)
Rounding out the top three AI companies, NVIDIA makes graphics processing units (GPUs), whose computing power has been the foundation of several generative AI technologies. The company commands 87% of the GPU market and has had a hand in major advances in AI technology, including ChatGPT, which was trained using 10,000 NVIDIA GPUs . NVIDIA NeMO LLM’s status as one of the most advanced major language models and a new partnership with Microsoft further cements its place among the leading AI companies.
2024 has been a busy year for NVIDIA, which has seen significant growth as part of the AI boom. In April 2024, the company announced the acquisition of two Israel-based companies, Run:ai and Deci. Then, on June 10, 2024, the company adopted a 10:1 stock split. This essentially means that for every share of the company’s stock that someone owns, they will now have ten shares. While the total value of the investment remains the same, each share’s price is reduced to one-tenth of its previous price.
Several days after the stock split announcement, on June 18, NVIDIA announced its partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise through the NVIDIA AI Computing initiative by HPE, which includes a range of AI solutions they have jointly developed. This initiative aims to help enterprises rapidly adopt generative AI technologies by providing integrated products and strategies that leverage enterprise expertise and technologies.
- Market capitalization: $2.64 trillion
- Headquarters: Santa Clara, CA, USA
- Founded: 1993
- AI focus: GPU manufacturing
4. Alphabet (GOOG)
Google’s product suite spans many categories in the tech industry, with products that touch everything from education to advertising and training to streaming video. Twenty-five years after the company’s founding, its flagship product remains its eponymous search engine, which reportedly accounts for more than 90% of the world’s searches, averaging 8.5 billion searches per day. Google and its parent company, Alphabet, expanded into AI and deep learning by forming its Google AI division in 2017.
In 2023, the company announced Bard, an AI chatbot designed to compete with Microsoft’s integration of ChatGPT into its Bing search engine. However, the release was somewhat marred by reported internal disapproval of the product’s launch. In May 2024, Google released its latest AI feature, AI Overviews, to everyone using its search engine. The AI overview tries to provide more in-depth answers to users’ questions before they even click through to an article listed with search results. After the launch, the company temporarily rolled back the feature due to the presence of incorrect AI-generated information. Despite some setbacks with these releases, Alphabet’s quarterly cloud revenue exceeded $10 billion in Q2 2024 for the first time due to their investment in AI innovations.
On August 5, a federal judge ruled that Google has violated US antitrust laws and has acted as a monopoly in the search and advertising space. Google has argued that consumers choose its search engine because it is simply the best, not because of anti-competitive behavior. The ruling is expected to lead to a separate proceeding to determine penalties for Google, which could include monetary fines and operational changes.
- Market capitalization: $2.06 trillion
- Headquarters: Mountain View, CA, USA
- Founded: 1998
- AI Focus: Web Search
5. Metaplattformar (META)
Meta (formerly known as Facebook) recently celebrated twenty years and has grown into a large user base, with 3.14 billion people interacting with one of their platforms daily. The company is known for its social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus. While the company has faced criticism over privacy concerns since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, misinformation spread across platforms and general antitrust concerns, Meta has made strides in increasing transparency over the past year, particularly when it comes to ad targeting of users.
Meta has shifted much of its focus to becoming one of the largest AI development companies in social media and the web. In February 2024, Meta announced its efforts to draw the line between reality and AI-generated images and videos on its platforms. The move will notify users when photorealistic content has been generated by AI. In June 2024, the company announced plans to introduce free artificial intelligence chatbots on its messaging platform WhatsApp as a monetization strategy. It is also in the process of developing multilingual Meta AI for Facebook and Instagram.
- Market capitalization: $1.23 trillion
- Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA, USA
- Founded: 2004
- AI focus: Social networks
