Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm in 2023. After being limited to talks within the developers and tech enthusiast community for years, AI has found space in the headlines of nearly all the mainstream media lately, especially after the launch of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT less than a year ago. It has also led to a big spike in the shares of companies that are focusing on AI tech development.
While increasingly more people globally are talking and reading about AI-based next-generation tools these days, most of them apparently don’t understand that AI is more than just a temporary trend in the tech industry. Let me explain why.
AI is more than just a temporary tech industry trend
Whether we talk about 3D televisions, hoverboards, curved smartphones, minidisc players, or the semantic web, it’s true that the many tech industry trends have largely failed to impress consumers and users for very long, despite looking very promising at their early stages.
Unlike these trends, however, AI technology could be sustainable as it has the potential to help businesses grow faster and speed up research and development in many sectors. To give you a simple example, AI can help improve energy efficiency by predictive maintenance and optimizing consumption patterns. Similarly, resource management, waste recycling, climate conservation, and smarter transportation are also among the areas that can potentially witness huge improvements with the help of AI.
While we have heard a lot about the text and image generation capabilities of AI-powered tools, most people in the last year have seemingly ignored AI’s true potential. But considering AI technology’s vast application in many fields, as discussed above, I strongly believe AI is more than just a temporary tech industry trend.
How investors can benefit from this trend
In the last decade, AI technology has made significant improvements. You can expect this development to speed up in the next few years, as increasingly more large companies than ever, with big resources, are now working on AI-related solutions. Given that, it could be the right time for long-term investors to add some quality AI stocks to their portfolio to expect some eye-popping returns on their investments in the long run.
BlackBerry (TSX:BB) could be a great example of such AI-focused Canadian tech stocks. This Waterloo-based enterprise software company currently has a market cap of $3 billion, as its stock trades at $5.15 per share with nearly 15% year-to-date gains.
Besides using AI to enhance the proactive cyber defence capabilities of its enterprise cybersecurity solutions, BlackBerry also offers innovative machine learning and AI-powered technological solutions for the automotive industry. For example, its advanced BlackBerry IVY platform allows automakers to receive in-vehicle sensor data in real time. The platform uses machine learning to let carmakers utilize the data to provide their consumers with more attractive and advanced features and functionalities.
To accelerate growth in both of its business segments, BlackBerry recently announced intentions to separate its cybersecurity and IoT (Internet of Things) into two independently operated business entities.
Despite all these positive developments, BB stock has seen more than 22% value erosion in the last year due mainly to recent macroeconomic challenges, making this AI-focused TSX stock look undervalued to buy now and hold for the long term.
