Warren Buffett's $410 Billion Portfolio: A Significant Investment in AI Stocks

46% of Warren Buffett's $410 Billion Portfolio Is Invested in 4 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks

When it comes to Wall Street investing greats, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A)(NYSE: BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett is on a pedestal of his own. Since taking the reins at Berkshire in 1965, he's overseen a cumulative return in his company's Class A shares (BRK.A) of 5,028,429%, as of the closing bell on July 10. On an annualized basis, the "Oracle of Omaha" has practically doubled up the total return, including dividends paid, of the benchmark S&P 500 since the mid-1960s. Buffett's formula for success primarily involves buying stakes in brand-name, time-tested businesses with well-defined competitive advantages. While this strategy places a lot of emphasis on value stocks, the occasional growth stock does wind up in the 44-stock, $410 billion portfolio Buffett and his team oversee at Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. Image source: The Motley Fool. What might be especially surprising is discovering that Warren Buffett and his cohorts have, at least inadvertently, bet big on the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. AI involves the use of software and systems for tasks that humans would typically oversee or undertake. The capacity for these systems to learn and evolve over time, becoming more proficient at their tasks or perhaps learning new skills, is what gives AI such broad-reaching utility. As of the closing bell on July 10, a whopping 46% ($188.8 billion) of the $410 billion portfolio Warren Buffett oversees at Berkshire Hathaway was invested in four top-notch AI stocks. Apple: $183.9 billion (44.8% of invested assets) The lion's share of Buffett's exposure to artificial intelligence rests on the shoulders of tech stock Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), which accounts for close to 45% of Berkshire's $410 billion of invested assets. In June, during the company's annual Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple unveiled what it dubbed "Apple Intelligence." Though Apple has been leaning on various AI solutions for years, it laid out plans to bring chatbot solutions, powered by ChatGPT, to its operating systems, as well as make its voice assistant Siri a lot more intuitive. However, the Oracle of Omaha and his team didn't buy into Apple because of its role in the future of AI. More than likely, Buffett and his close advisors recognized its dominance in smartphones -- Apple has sustained a 50% or greater domestic share of the smartphone market since introducing 5G-capable iPhones in late 2020 -- as well as the success it's having in shifting to a services-based model that's driven by higher-margin subscriptions. While Apple certainly deserves a premium given its first-mover advantages and cutting-edge innovations, its growth engine has stalled out in recent years. Although it's possible AI could be the catalyst that reignites growth, Apple's $674 billion in cumulative stock buybacks since the start of 2013 have done most of the heavy lifting of late. BYD: $2 billion (0.5% of invested assets) A second artificial intelligence stock that the Oracle of Omaha and his team have bet big on is China-based electric-vehicle (EV) manufacturer BYD (OTC: BYDD.F). The roughly 65.8 million shares Berkshire holds in BYD equates to a 6% stake in the company, which is worth around $2 billion. Newer vehicles are becoming increasingly more reliant on technology and AI to improve safety and comfort for drivers. For instance, in mid-January, BYD launched its Xuanji Architecture, which is designed to help drivers with automated parking and other advanced driving assistance technologies. BYD has also been working with Chinese regulators to test Level 3 autonomous driving on high-speed roads in the city of Shenzhen. U.S. rival Tesla has been stick at Level 2 autonomy for years, despite the continued promises of CEO Elon Musk that Level 5 autonomy is "about one year away." What's been particularly exciting about BYD's production ramp is that it's now selling more battery-EVs than Tesla worldwide. While Tesla still retains its first-mover advantages in North America, BYD's rate of ascension in China has dwarfed all other competitors. The third stock that accounts for another multibillion-dollar bet on AI is none other than e-commerce legend Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). The 10 million shares of Amazon stock held by Berkshire works out to a market value of roughly $2 billion. Although most investors are familiar with Amazon because of its dominant online marketplace, cloud infrastructure service platform Amazon Web Services (AWS) is, arguably, its most important operating segment. Generative AI solutions can be leaned on by businesses in AWS to deploy virtual chatbots or assistants and build/scale large language models (LLMs). The best thing about enterprise cloud spending is that we're still in the very early innings of its expansion. This is fantastic news considering that AWS has already surpassed $100 billion in annual run-rate sales, and is Amazon's highest-margin segment. The company's other fast-paced ancillary segments are holding their own, too. Advertising services and subscription services offer sustained double-digit growth. Attracting 2.5 billion unique visitors to its website monthly has helped with ad sales, while a growing content library, which now includes Thursday Night Football, has almost certainly lifted the aggregate number of global Prime subscribers. Snowflake: $842 million (0.2% of invested assets) The fourth AI stock that, along with Apple, BYD, and Amazon, collectively accounts for 46% of Berkshire Hathaway's $410 billion of invested assets is cloud data-warehousing company Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW). Similar to Amazon, Snowflake was added to Berkshire's portfolio by one of Buffett's investing "lieutenants," Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. Last year, Snowflake acquired Neeva, a company that leverages generative AI solutions within the cloud to improve search. Snowflake plans to rely on various generative AI solutions within its data cloud to allow its customers to easily analyze data and build, train, and deploy LLMs. Beyond its AI ties, the lure of Snowflake as an investment has long been its ingrained competitive advantages. Snowflake built its data cloud atop the world's leading cloud infrastructure service platforms. Whereas sharing data can be challenging across competing platforms, it's a breeze with Snowflake. Likewise, Snowflake has shunned the subscription-as-a-service model in favor of a pay-as-you-go approach. The transparency of businesses only paying for the Snowflake Compute Credits and data storage space used has helped it retain clients and steadily grow its base of bigger businesses. However, Snowflake is a pricey stock and certainly doesn't fit the mold of a traditional Warren Buffett investment. Valued at 13 times forecast sales in the current fiscal year, and roughly 139 times earnings per share (EPS) in the following year, Snowflake has a lot to prove to Wall Street. The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now... and Apple wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $826,672!* Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Sean Williams has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, BYD Company, Berkshire Hathaway, Snowflake, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

6 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks Inside Warren Buffett's $410 Billion Portfolio

Warren Buffett has managed the Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) investment company since 1965. Over that 59-year stretch, he steered the conglomerate to average annual returns of 19.8%, which is nearly twice the average annual return delivered by the S&P 500 index over the same period. In dollar terms, $1,000 invested in Berkshire stock in 1965 would have grown to $43 million by the end of 2023. The same investment in the S&P 500 would have been worth a mere $312,230. Buffett likes to buy stock in companies with steady growth, consistent profitability, solid management teams, and shareholder-friendly initiatives like dividend schemes and stock buyback programs. One thing Buffett doesn't do is chase the latest stock market trend, so you won't find him piling into artificial intelligence (AI) stocks just because they are generating the best returns right now. That said, at least six of the 47 stocks already in Berkshire's $410 billion portfolio of publicly traded securities now use AI in some capacity. Here's a look at each company and what they're up to in AI. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is Berkshire's largest position. The conglomerate spent about $38 billion accumulating shares since 2016, and the position is now worth $184 billion -- even after Berkshire sold 13% of its stake for tax reasons earlier this year. Apple makes some of the world's most popular consumer devices led by the flagship iPhone, and it could soon be one of the biggest players in AI. Apple just revealed its Apple Intelligence software, which it developed in partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI. It's expected to go live in September alongside the new iOS 18 operating system, and it will overhaul many of the company's existing software products. The Siri voice assistant will be powered by ChatGPT, and users will be able to read a summary of their emails in the Mail application with a single tap. Apple Intelligence can also transcribe audio recordings, which means users can spend less time typing. There are more than 2.2 billion Apple devices worldwide, so the company could become the largest distributor of AI to consumers. Some analysts on Wall Street expect the upcoming iPhone 16 to drive a big upgrade cycle because it's rumored to come with a powerful new chip designed specifically for processing AI workloads. 2. Bank of America: 10.5% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio Berkshire first bought shares in Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) in 2007, and it's now the conglomerate's second-largest holding. Investors probably don't associate banking with cutting-edge technology, given it's such a slow-moving industry. But Bank of America was an early adopter of AI, launching its AI assistant called Erica way back in 2018. Erica can remind customers about upcoming bills, locate historical transactions, and even offer ideas for saving money and reducing debt. Over the last six years, Erica has logged more than 2 billion interactions with customers, and adoption is accelerating. Bank of America recently introduced Erica to its business clients who use the CashPro platform, and the chatbot is already solving 43% of inquiries autonomously with no human intervention. AI tools like Erica are likely to shrink the human workforce for banks, especially in their customer service departments, and those cost savings can translate into much higher earnings. 3. Coca-Cola: 6.1% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio Last year, Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) allowed generative AI to formulate a new drink called Coca-Cola Y3000. The AI model used customer data to predict what the popular beverage might taste like in the year 3000. It was a great marketing stunt that showcased Coca-Cola's progressive approach to technology, and the company even hired a "head of generative AI" in 2023. The company recently signed a five-year deal with Microsoft, committing to spend $1.1 billion on the Azure cloud platform and its generative AI services. Coca-Cola will use Azure to weave AI throughout its entire organization, enhancing everything from marketing to manufacturing to the supply chain. Berkshire spent $1.3 billion accumulating 400 million shares in Coca-Cola between 1987 and 1994. It never sold a single one, and that position is now valued at $25.1 billion. Plus, Berkshire will collect $776 million in dividend payments from Coca-Cola this year alone, which highlights the powerful effects of compounding over the long term. 4. Visa: 0.5% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio Visa (NYSE: V) has more than 4.4 billion cards in circulation worldwide, making it the largest issuer in the industry. Visa doesn't lend any money; it simply operates a payments network, which means it earns a steady stream of fees that grows as more merchants and consumers enter its ecosystem. It's right in the wheelhouse of a patient long-term investor like Buffett, which is why Berkshire has owned the stock since 2011. Visa is constantly battling fraud, which includes highly automated enumeration attacks that use bots to exploit network vulnerabilities. The company just launched a new AI-powered tool for its Visa Account Attack Intelligence (VAAI) platform, which autonomously identifies and assigns a score to enumeration attacks so banks can make more informed decisions on when to block transactions on behalf of customers. But that's not all. Visa's new Stand-In Processing tool steps in when banks suffer outages or network disruptions, using AI to approve and decline transactions so services can continue for customers without interruption. Visa processed over 72 billion transactions in the last quarter alone, and with that much volume and data, automation is essential. Therefore, investors should expect this company to push the boundaries of innovation when it comes to AI. 5. Amazon: 0.5% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio Berkshire bought Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) stock in 2019, but Buffett often expresses regret for not identifying the opportunity much earlier. Amazon has expanded beyond its roots in e-commerce and now operates in video streaming, digital advertising, cloud computing, and AI. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud division is investing heavily in AI. It developed its own chips, its own large language models (LLMs), and even its own applications, all of which are available to businesses and developers who can use them to either create their own AI products or drive efficiency in their day-to-day operations. Amazon also uses AI to power the recommendation engine on Amazon.com. It learns what customers like so it can show them more of those products to boost sales. Plus, merchants can use Amazon's AI software to create product pages with engaging descriptions and images. Amazon just entered the exclusive $2 trillion club, and there could be plenty of long-term upside ahead thanks to AI. 6. Snowflake: 0.2% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW) doesn't fit Buffett's usual criteria. The cloud computing company is growing, but it's a long way from achieving profitability, and it doesn't return any money to shareholders. Berkshire bought Snowflake around the time of its IPO in 2020, and one of Buffett's lieutenants likely made the decision. Snowflake's data cloud helps organizations aggregate their data even if it's spread across multiple cloud platforms, eliminating silos and enabling more effective analysis. The company launched Cortex AI last year, which gives businesses the tools to develop AI models using a mixture of their own data and ready-made LLMs. Cortex AI also includes several AI-powered tools. The Copilot chatbot understands natural language and can offer assistance across Snowflake's platforms, and Document AI allows developers to rapidly extract valuable data from unstructured sources like contracts and invoices. Snowflake is in a great position to thrive in the world of AI, but investors should tread cautiously because its stock is very expensive. The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now... and Apple wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $780,654!* Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Bank of America is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company. Anthony Di Pizio has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, Snowflake, and Visa. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

46% of Warren Buffett's $410 Billion Portfolio Is Invested in 4 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks

The "Oracle of Omaha" has nearly $189 billion of Berkshire Hathaway's invested assets riding on four top-notch artificial intelligence (AI) stocks. When it comes to Wall Street investing greats, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 1.06%) (BRK.B 1.21%) CEO Warren Buffett is on a pedestal of his own. Since taking the reins at Berkshire in 1965, he's overseen a cumulative return in his company's Class A shares (BRK.A) of 5,028,429%, as of the closing bell on July 10. On an annualized basis, the "Oracle of Omaha" has practically doubled up the total return, including dividends paid, of the benchmark S&P 500 since the mid-1960s. Buffett's formula for success primarily involves buying stakes in brand-name, time-tested businesses with well-defined competitive advantages. While this strategy places a lot of emphasis on value stocks, the occasional growth stock does wind up in the 44-stock, $410 billion portfolio Buffett and his team oversee at Berkshire Hathaway. What might be especially surprising is discovering that Warren Buffett and his cohorts have, at least inadvertently, bet big on the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. AI involves the use of software and systems for tasks that humans would typically oversee or undertake. The capacity for these systems to learn and evolve over time, becoming more proficient at their tasks or perhaps learning new skills, is what gives AI such broad-reaching utility. As of the closing bell on July 10, a whopping 46% ($188.8 billion) of the $410 billion portfolio Warren Buffett oversees at Berkshire Hathaway was invested in four top-notch AI stocks. In June, during the company's annual Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple unveiled what it dubbed "Apple Intelligence." Though Apple has been leaning on various AI solutions for years, it laid out plans to bring chatbot solutions, powered by ChatGPT, to its operating systems, as well as make its voice assistant Siri a lot more intuitive. However, the Oracle of Omaha and his team didn't buy into Apple because of its role in the future of AI. More than likely, Buffett and his close advisors recognized its dominance in smartphones -- Apple has sustained a 50% or greater domestic share of the smartphone market since introducing 5G-capable iPhones in late 2020 -- as well as the success it's having in shifting to a services-based model that's driven by higher-margin subscriptions. While Apple certainly deserves a premium given its first-mover advantages and cutting-edge innovations, its growth engine has stalled out in recent years. Although it's possible AI could be the catalyst that reignites growth, Apple's $674 billion in cumulative stock buybacks since the start of 2013 have done most of the heavy lifting of late. BYD: $2 billion (0.5% of invested assets) A second artificial intelligence stock that the Oracle of Omaha and his team have bet big on is China-based electric-vehicle (EV) manufacturer BYD (BYDD.F 1.84%). The roughly 65.8 million shares Berkshire holds in BYD equates to a 6% stake in the company, which is worth around $2 billion. Newer vehicles are becoming increasingly more reliant on technology and AI to improve safety and comfort for drivers. For instance, in mid-January, BYD launched its Xuanji Architecture, which is designed to help drivers with automated parking and other advanced driving assistance technologies. BYD has also been working with Chinese regulators to test Level 3 autonomous driving on high-speed roads in the city of Shenzhen. U.S. rival Tesla has been stick at Level 2 autonomy for years, despite the continued promises of CEO Elon Musk that Level 5 autonomy is "about one year away." What's been particularly exciting about BYD's production ramp is that it's now selling more battery-EVs than Tesla worldwide. While Tesla still retains its first-mover advantages in North America, BYD's rate of ascension in China has dwarfed all other competitors. Amazon: $2 billion (0.5% of invested assets) The third stock that accounts for another multibillion-dollar bet on AI is none other than e-commerce legend Amazon (AMZN -2.37%). The 10 million shares of Amazon stock held by Berkshire works out to a market value of roughly $2 billion. Although most investors are familiar with Amazon because of its dominant online marketplace, cloud infrastructure service platform Amazon Web Services (AWS) is, arguably, its most important operating segment. Generative AI solutions can be leaned on by businesses in AWS to deploy virtual chatbots or assistants and build/scale large language models (LLMs). The best thing about enterprise cloud spending is that we're still in the very early innings of its expansion. This is fantastic news considering that AWS has already surpassed $100 billion in annual run-rate sales, and is Amazon's highest-margin segment. The company's other fast-paced ancillary segments are holding their own, too. Advertising services and subscription services offer sustained double-digit growth. Attracting 2.5 billion unique visitors to its website monthly has helped with ad sales, while a growing content library, which now includes Thursday Night Football, has almost certainly lifted the aggregate number of global Prime subscribers. Snowflake: $842 million (0.2% of invested assets) The fourth AI stock that, along with Apple, BYD, and Amazon, collectively accounts for 46% of Berkshire Hathaway's $410 billion of invested assets is cloud data-warehousing company Snowflake (SNOW 0.49%). Similar to Amazon, Snowflake was added to Berkshire's portfolio by one of Buffett's investing "lieutenants," Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. Last year, Snowflake acquired Neeva, a company that leverages generative AI solutions within the cloud to improve search. Snowflake plans to rely on various generative AI solutions within its data cloud to allow its customers to easily analyze data and build, train, and deploy LLMs. Beyond its AI ties, the lure of Snowflake as an investment has long been its ingrained competitive advantages. Snowflake built its data cloud atop the world's leading cloud infrastructure service platforms. Whereas sharing data can be challenging across competing platforms, it's a breeze with Snowflake. Likewise, Snowflake has shunned the subscription-as-a-service model in favor of a pay-as-you-go approach. The transparency of businesses only paying for the Snowflake Compute Credits and data storage space used has helped it retain clients and steadily grow its base of bigger businesses. However, Snowflake is a pricey stock and certainly doesn't fit the mold of a traditional Warren Buffett investment. Valued at 13 times forecast sales in the current fiscal year, and roughly 139 times earnings per share (EPS) in the following year, Snowflake has a lot to prove to Wall Street.

6 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks Inside Warren Buffett's $410 Billion Portfolio | The Motley Fool

Warren Buffett has managed the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 1.66%) (BRK.B 1.35%) investment company since 1965. Over that 59-year stretch, he steered the conglomerate to average annual returns of 19.8%, which is nearly twice the average annual return delivered by the S&P 500 index over the same period. In dollar terms, $1,000 invested in Berkshire stock in 1965 would have grown to $43 million by the end of 2023. The same investment in the S&P 500 would have been worth a mere $312,230. Buffett likes to buy stock in companies with steady growth, consistent profitability, solid management teams, and shareholder-friendly initiatives like dividend schemes and stock buyback programs. One thing Buffett doesn't do is chase the latest stock market trend, so you won't find him piling into artificial intelligence (AI) stocks just because they are generating the best returns right now. That said, at least six of the 47 stocks already in Berkshire's $410 billion portfolio of publicly traded securities now use AI in some capacity. Here's a look at each company and what they're up to in AI. Apple (AAPL 1.30%) is Berkshire's largest position. The conglomerate spent about $38 billion accumulating shares since 2016, and the position is now worth $184 billion -- even after Berkshire sold 13% of its stake for tax reasons earlier this year. Apple makes some of the world's most popular consumer devices led by the flagship iPhone, and it could soon be one of the biggest players in AI. Apple just revealed its Apple Intelligence software, which it developed in partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI. It's expected to go live in September alongside the new iOS 18 operating system, and it will overhaul many of the company's existing software products. The Siri voice assistant will be powered by ChatGPT, and users will be able to read a summary of their emails in the Mail application with a single tap. Apple Intelligence can also transcribe audio recordings, which means users can spend less time typing. There are more than 2.2 billion Apple devices worldwide, so the company could become the largest distributor of AI to consumers. Some analysts on Wall Street expect the upcoming iPhone 16 to drive a big upgrade cycle because it's rumored to come with a powerful new chip designed specifically for processing AI workloads. Berkshire first bought shares in Bank of America (BAC -0.53%) in 2007, and it's now the conglomerate's second-largest holding. Investors probably don't associate banking with cutting-edge technology, given it's such a slow-moving industry. But Bank of America was an early adopter of AI, launching its AI assistant called Erica way back in 2018. Erica can remind customers about upcoming bills, locate historical transactions, and even offer ideas for saving money and reducing debt. Over the last six years, Erica has logged more than 2 billion interactions with customers, and adoption is accelerating. Bank of America recently introduced Erica to its business clients who use the CashPro platform, and the chatbot is already solving 43% of inquiries autonomously with no human intervention. AI tools like Erica are likely to shrink the human workforce for banks, especially in their customer service departments, and those cost savings can translate into much higher earnings. Last year, Coca-Cola (KO 0.95%) allowed generative AI to formulate a new drink called Coca-Cola Y3000. The AI model used customer data to predict what the popular beverage might taste like in the year 3000. It was a great marketing stunt that showcased Coca-Cola's progressive approach to technology, and the company even hired a "head of generative AI" in 2023. The company recently signed a five-year deal with Microsoft, committing to spend $1.1 billion on the Azure cloud platform and its generative AI services. Coca-Cola will use Azure to weave AI throughout its entire organization, enhancing everything from marketing to manufacturing to the supply chain. Berkshire spent $1.3 billion accumulating 400 million shares in Coca-Cola between 1987 and 1994. It never sold a single one, and that position is now valued at $25.1 billion. Plus, Berkshire will collect $776 million in dividend payments from Coca-Cola this year alone, which highlights the powerful effects of compounding over the long term. Visa (V 1.22%) has more than 4.4 billion cards in circulation worldwide, making it the largest issuer in the industry. Visa doesn't lend any money; it simply operates a payments network, which means it earns a steady stream of fees that grows as more merchants and consumers enter its ecosystem. It's right in the wheelhouse of a patient long-term investor like Buffett, which is why Berkshire has owned the stock since 2011. Visa is constantly battling fraud, which includes highly automated enumeration attacks that use bots to exploit network vulnerabilities. The company just launched a new AI-powered tool for its Visa Account Attack Intelligence (VAAI) platform, which autonomously identifies and assigns a score to enumeration attacks so banks can make more informed decisions on when to block transactions on behalf of customers. But that's not all. Visa's new Stand-In Processing tool steps in when banks suffer outages or network disruptions, using AI to approve and decline transactions so services can continue for customers without interruption. Visa processed over 72 billion transactions in the last quarter alone, and with that much volume and data, automation is essential. Therefore, investors should expect this company to push the boundaries of innovation when it comes to AI. Berkshire bought Amazon (AMZN -0.29%) stock in 2019, but Buffett often expresses regret for not identifying the opportunity much earlier. Amazon has expanded beyond its roots in e-commerce and now operates in video streaming, digital advertising, cloud computing, and AI. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud division is investing heavily in AI. It developed its own chips, its own large language models (LLMs), and even its own applications, all of which are available to businesses and developers who can use them to either create their own AI products or drive efficiency in their day-to-day operations. Amazon also uses AI to power the recommendation engine on Amazon.com. It learns what customers like so it can show them more of those products to boost sales. Plus, merchants can use Amazon's AI software to create product pages with engaging descriptions and images. Amazon just entered the exclusive $2 trillion club, and there could be plenty of long-term upside ahead thanks to AI. Snowflake (SNOW -1.76%) doesn't fit Buffett's usual criteria. The cloud computing company is growing, but it's a long way from achieving profitability, and it doesn't return any money to shareholders. Berkshire bought Snowflake around the time of its IPO in 2020, and one of Buffett's lieutenants likely made the decision. Snowflake's data cloud helps organizations aggregate their data even if it's spread across multiple cloud platforms, eliminating silos and enabling more effective analysis. The company launched Cortex AI last year, which gives businesses the tools to develop AI models using a mixture of their own data and ready-made LLMs. Cortex AI also includes several AI-powered tools. The Copilot chatbot understands natural language and can offer assistance across Snowflake's platforms, and Document AI allows developers to rapidly extract valuable data from unstructured sources like contracts and invoices. Snowflake is in a great position to thrive in the world of AI, but investors should tread cautiously because its stock is very expensive.