Key Points
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Palantir could become the AI operating system for the entire U.S. economy.
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CrowdStrike is one of the best stocks to invest in as a bet on the growth of cybersecurity.
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Alphabet is an excellent way to invest in the broader consumption of AI across consumer and enterprise services.
- 10 stocks we like better than Palantir Technologies ›
If you want to build serious retirement wealth, you need to invest in growing companies that are shaping the future. Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving change across the economy right now, creating massive opportunities for Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR), CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ: CRWD), and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL). Here’s why these growth stocks could serve as excellent foundational holdings in a long-term investment portfolio.
Palantir Technologies
Palantir is in business to solve some of the most complicated problems for companies and the U.S. government. Its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) goes deeper than the offerings of many rival AI providers by analyzing an organization’s web of data, detecting patterns, and making sense of it. It’s turning AI into actionable insights that can save companies real money.
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The value Palantir offers organizations is reflected in its accelerating growth. Two years ago, its U.S. commercial revenue was growing by 40% year over year. In the first quarter of 2026, it grew an astonishing 133%. Corporations are seeing what Palantir’s technology can do, and concluding that they can’t live without it.
Image source: Getty Images.
One trend benefiting Palantir is the falling cost of using AI. As Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar said on the first-quarterearnings call “As inference gets cheaper, the number of tasks that you can economically assign to AI grows exponentially.” Management raised its full-year revenue guidance at the time of the Q1 report, driven by “confidence in an accelerating U.S. market.”
A significant amount of expected growth is already priced into the stock, given its lofty price-to-sales multiple, but Palantir’s long-term opportunity is massive. The company sees itself becoming an operating system for entire industries as more companies adopt AIP. It has partnerships with businesses across a host of industries, including airlines, space, shipbuilding, insurance, healthcare, telecom, and automotive.
If the company’s top-line growth were to slow materially over the next few years, the stock would undoubtedly take a hit. But if AIP adoption continues to grow rapidly, this stock could be an excellent long-term compounder.
CrowdStrike Holdings
As AI spreads throughout the economy, cybersecurity threats grow more sophisticated, and stopping them becomes a bigger challenge. That should drive more spending on cybersecurity. CrowdStrike has been a leader in that market for years and has consistently delivered high revenue growth and profitability.
The company offers a cloud-based platform that protects companies across employee devices and cloud computing environments. Annual recurring revenue hit a record $5.2 billion in fiscal 2026, up 24% year over year. It also generated $1.2 billion in free cash flow.
In December, CrowdStrike announced the launch of Falcon AI Detection and Response, which should drive greater adoption of its solutions. During the company’s fourth-quarterearnings call CEO George Kurtz said, “AI is driving elevated demand for the Falcon platform and is a key accelerant for our business.”
Cybersecurity is a competitive industry, and investors will want to watch for any vulnerabilities in CrowdStrike’s offering that might dent confidence in its ability to protect enterprise data. Any high-profile incident could send the stock lower.
Still, this is a rapidly growing industry, and CrowdStrike is one of the best stocks to consider within it. It offers balanced revenue and free-cash-flow growth. The company expects annual recurring revenue to grow roughly fourfold to $20 billion over the next 10 years. This is the look of a market-beating investment.
Alphabet
Google parent Alphabet has built a substantial competitive moat through its custom chips, models, and cloud platforms — the essential infrastructure of AI. This significantly raises the odds that the company will be able to maintain a long-term growth trajectory as it becomes one of the leading suppliers of the most powerful technology ever invented.
What makes this narrative particularly attractive to investors is that Alphabet already has 2 billion users across its services, and it can leverage its Gemini AI models to drive higher revenue from advertising and subscription services (e.g., Google One). It generates most of its revenue from advertising, but it also posted a 19% year-over-year increase in subscription revenues last quarter, along with a 63% increase in cloud revenue.
Google has a strong ecosystem of services to monetize AI across consumer and enterprise cloud services. AI has supercharged the company’s growth, with total revenue up 22% year over year to $110 billion last quarter. Its $174 billion in trailing cash from operations is funding additional infrastructure investment, which should keep the growth flywheel spinning.
Beyond its core businesses, Google continues to invest in moonshot opportunities like robotaxis (through its Waymo subsidiary) and its quantum computing chip, Willow. These could add additional upside that is not yet priced into the stock.
Another U.S. recession would likely hurt Google’s advertising revenue and send the stock down, as it did in 2022. But over time, investors should expect Alphabet to benefit from long-term growth in digital advertising and cloud services enhanced by its AI models.
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John Ballard has positions in Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, CrowdStrike, and Palantir Technologies. 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.