What Are Whitney Tilson’s AI Stock Picks for 2023?

It seems like everyone is talking about the power of AI these days, and Whitney Tilson has jumped on the bandwagon with a new AI-focused stock teaser pitch as well.

In short, Tilson says that artificial intelligence (AI) is an “$87 trillion market,” and that it could “create the world’s first trillionaires.” He also teased a company that he claims is “leading the way,” which he details in a report called “How to Profit From the $87 Trillion AI Wave.”

And he pitched four other AI companies as well.

In this post, I’ll break down what Whitney Tilson’s AI prediction is all about, and share my guesses of what companies I think he’s teasing (I think I’ve nailed 4/5 picks).

Unpacking Tilson’s “Society 5.0” AI Prediction

The essence of Whitney Tilson’s AI prediction is that, right now, we are in a “new phase as a global population” that he calls “society 5.0.”

Basically, he explains that we’ve gone from hunters to farmers to the industrial revolution to the age of information, and now we are entering the fifth phase. A phase that, according to Tilson, is where people have “historically gotten extremely wealthy.”

“See, rarely will specific stock selection make you filthy rich.

“Instead, it’s all about getting in front of historic shifts… new paradigms that completely reset everything in our lives.

“And that’s exactly where we are right now.

“We’re entering a new phase as a global population…

“A phase known as ‘Society 5.0.’

“As you might imagine, before Society 5.0, there were four previous iterations of how we lived and interacted.

“Now, we’re leaving 4.0 and moving into 5.0.

“And these transitions are where people have historically gotten extremely wealthy.”

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20230425232146/https://secure.empirefinancialresearch.com/?cid=MKT725490&eid=MKT733508&assetId=AST292097&page=2

I don’t know about the whole “society 5.0” thing, but it’s hard to argue with Tilson about how disruptive AI is likely to be. I earn a living online doing affiliate marketing, and I am seeing this tech pop up everywhere.

Right now, the excitement is mostly centered around ChatGPT, which is remarkable, but this is likely the tip of the iceberg of what is possible.

Anyways, long story short… Tilson spent some time hyping up the potential of AI and said he believes it will “be the driver behind the large-scale adoption of hundreds if not thousands of new technologies” in the future.

And from there, he teased FIVE AI stocks in total.

I’m not sure what all of these companies are, but I did manage to uncover what I think could be four of them. So let’s discuss these now.

Whitney Tilson’s AI Stock Picks (5 Stocks)

Whitney Tilson never reveals his AI picks in the presentation. Instead, he details them in different research reports that you get by subscribing to his paid newsletter service called Empire Stock Investor ($49 for the first year, $299/year thereafter).

I am a member of this service (and I have published a detailed review of the service if you want to know my thoughts before joining), but I haven’t read the reports on these stocks yet. Reason being, it’s a paid service, so I can’t just read the reports and share the info here (lol).

So what follows are my best guesses on the companies he’s teasing.

“How to Profit From the $87 Trillion AI Wave” (Research Report 1)

Here are the main clues Whitney Tilson shared about his first pick:

“… there’s one company in the AI space that I believe is head and shoulders above the rest for profiting on this trend right now.”

[…]

“It has already instituted AI tools that analyze customer behavior and create targeted marketing campaigns.

“Already, 4.5 million websites use this company to market and sell their products in 175 countries around the world.

“Massive celebrities like Kylie Jenner, David Beckham, and Adele use this company to market their own brands.

“So do huge sports brands like Gymshark, Fitbit, and even the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.

“But get this…

“This company was originally created to sell snowboarding equipment online.”

[…]

“The first couple of years this company was in operation, it had 28 million customers.

“This year, it’s expected to have 700 million.”

[…]

“In other words, this company is absolutely dominating the $800 billion global advertising industry.”

What could it be? I think Tilson’s teasing Shopify (SHOP), a multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Canada.

And the reason I think that is because this company lines up with his clues.

For instance…

• The part he said about the company being expected to reach 700 million customers this year (2023) seems to line up with what is said in an article on demandsage.com about Shopify stats.
• Also, this article on vuzo.co.uk states that, as of 2023, “almost 4.5 million websites use Shopify across more than 175 countries.”
• And according to Wikipedia, Shopify was founded in 2006 in an attempt to sell snowboarding equipment online.

So, Shopify appears to be Tilson’s first pick.

As for the other four AI picks, read on.

“Buy the Platforms: Your Best Shot at a 500% Winner” (Research Report 2)

Tilson defines a so-called “platform company” as a business that creates “systems so that other companies can develop their own projects.”

And in his “Buy the Platforms” report, he details three AI companies he’s bullish on. So let’s look at the clues he shared about each stock to see what he’s teasing.

AI Platform Company #1

Here are Tilson’s clues:

“The first of these companies is THE dominant player in this space – it provides AI platforms for 100,000 clients…

“One of these clients is entertainment titan Disney, which is using this company’s AI to build tools that let it tag nearly a century’s worth of content.

“Other multibillion-dollar firms also use this company’s AI platforms, including Intuit, 3M, and T-Mobile.

“And just like Google bought up YouTube…

“This company has just made seven huge acquisitions in the AI space.

“I recommend you buy this business’s stock immediately and hold for the long term. I think it’s going to be a huge winner in the AI race.”

I’m not super confident about my guess on this one, but I think Tilson might be teasing Amazon (AMZN) here.

Why? Because for one thing, Amazon Web Services (AWS), according to a recent CNBC article, has “racked up over 100,000 AI customers.” And second, both companies Tilson mentioned (3M and T-Mobile) appear to be AWS customers.

So, I could be wrong, but I think this pick is Amazon.

AI Platform Company #2

Tilson’s clues:

“Already this company has developed platforms to:

• Generate computer code from high-level mathematical operations
• Accelerate the process of deep learning
• Generate visualizations for scientific experiments
• Help researchers better understand epidemics
• Create 3D maps of the human body

“And that’s just for starters.

“This company has also recently made 18 top-line acquisitions in the AI space, ranging from language processors to chatbots to automated mapping.

“And right now, the company is trading at a huge discount thanks to the recent stock market volatility that hit tech stocks.”

[…]

“Not only that, but this company is addressing some of the biggest problems we face in the world… gender bias, medical care, and renewable energy, to name a few.”

That’s not much to go off, so I have no idea what this one is. If you think you know, feel free to share your guess in the comments section below!

AI Platform Company #3

Tilson’s clues:

“And of course, there’s one more platform company that I recommend you buy shares of right away…

“It looks to take AI to a new level, and over the next few years, I expect it to become one of the biggest AI companies in the world.

“Right now, this company isn’t associated with the tech elite, but it could soon be placed right up there with the FAANG stocks (Meta Platforms’ Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet’s Google).

“In fact, Forbes calls this firm…

[shows image of a Forbes quote that reads “America’s most important company.”]

“Why?

“Because right now, this single company has powered nearly every major AI breakthrough.

“Its AI chips are lightyears ahead of the competition. Its newest system has been described as an ‘AI supercomputer in a box.’ And it has built the most powerful chip system ever created.”

The above Forbes quote pretty much gave this one away because it led me to a 2020 article on Forbes about AI, where one of the subheadings reads “America’s most important company” and then begins discussing Nvidia (NVDA).

Also, Tilson said the company’s “AI chips” are ahead of the competition, which further suggests that Nvidia is a match, given that this is the industry the company operates in (semiconductors).

And lastly, Tilson’s clue about how the company’s “newest system” has been described as an “AI supercomputer in a box” seems to line up with what is stated in this technologyreview.com article.

So, Nvidia looks like Tilson’s third “AI platform” pick (fourth pick overall).

“The 20X AI Moonshot” (Research Report 3)

Lastly, Whitney Tilson teased a company that he says could give you the chance to “make as much as 20 times your money,” yet he also says it’s a “speculative play that carries more risk than you might want to expose yourself to.”

Here is an overview of his main clues:

“I almost never recommend a stock like this one. It’s a speculative play that carries more risk than you might want to expose yourself to.

“However, as the AI industry ramps up at an exponential pace, I believe this is the best company that gives you the chance to make as much as 20 times your money.

“I’m talking about a biotech company on the absolute cutting edge of the AI space.

“And it just entered into a nearly $10 million deal with the U.S. Department of Defense.

“See, this company has joined the AI revolution on multiple fronts…

• Next-generation vaccines
• Living medicines
• Enzyme discovery
• Product development
• Synthetic biology

“In other words, this company is tapping into some extremely advanced applications of AI.”

[…]

“Right now, shares of this company can be had on the open market for less than $5.”

I’m not certain about this one, but my best guess here is that Whitney Tilson is teasing a company called Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA).

And there are four main reasons I say this:

• First, while I find it somewhat difficult to define what this company does, Ginkgo is involved in the synthetic biology space and (more or less) seems to fit the description Tilson gave in the above clue.
• Second, according to synbiobeta.com, the US Department of Defense has “awarded nearly $10 million jointly to Transcriptic and Ginkgo Bioworks.”
• Third, Tilson has teased this company before in a presentation dubbed “America’s Next Big Monopoly,” which I wrote about in early 2022.
• And fourth, Ginkgo’s stock is currently (April 26, 2023) trading for “less than $5” a share, which matches the final clue Tilson shared. Granted, it’s trading for a lot less than $5, but it matches this particular clue all the same.

Bottom Line

As always, I would recommend taking what is said in these stock teaser presentations with a pinch of salt because a lot of it is sales hype designed to sell newsletters (in this case, Empire Stock Investor).

But I do tend to find Tilson’s presentations more interesting than the average teaser because he seems to put more research into the information he shares and tends to talk about innovative new trends, which I generally find interesting anyway.

Either way, I have no idea if any of the companies I’ve mentioned in this post will go up, down, or sideways in price… so I don’t know if investing in them is a good idea or not. But at least now you have a better idea of what AI companies Tilson is pitching.

And if you want to know more about Empire Stock Investor before joining, check out my review of the service. Yep… I forked out the money to join it myself and share what I found, including how the stock picks have worked out, so I think you’ll find that review worth a read if you’re considering joining.

I also did a write-up of Tilson’s 2022 picks if you want to know more about those.

Anyway, that’s it from me.

Thanks for reading, and all the best!