{"slug": "morgan-stanley-says-to-snatch-up-these-24-ai-adopter-stocks-as-their-profit", "title": "Morgan Stanley says to snatch up these 24 AI-adopter stocks as their profit margins balloon", "summary": "Morgan Stanley identified 24 AI-adopter stocks rated 'Overweight' that have seen relative net margins expand by 50 basis points in three months, with net margins now exceeding the broader market by nearly 400 basis points, according to a Monday note from Chief Investment Officer Mike Wilson. The list includes Alphabet, Roblox, eBay, and Bank of America, as investors shift focus to AI-driven efficiency and margin expansion.", "body_md": "Morgan Stanley says the market's attention is shifting toward AI-driven efficiency. These 24 stocks are among the top AI adopters, the bank said.\n\nMorgan Stanley shared a list of 24 AI-adopter stocks to watch.\n\nThey include Alphabet, Robloc, eBay, and Bank of America.\n\nAll stocks on the list are rated \"Overweight\" by the bank.\n\nAI hyperscalers are under serious scrutiny from investors looking for clues about how they'll monetize their massive infrastructure investments, but they're not the only ones feeling the pressure.\n\nInvestors also increasingly want companies downstream from AI to employ the technology to grow profit margins, Morgan Stanley said in a note on Monday.\n\nGiven the heightened focus on efficiency and productivity, the bank published a list of 24 stocks that have AI adoption as part of their core to thesis and which the bank rates as \"Overweight,\" or the equivalent of \"Buy.\"\n\n\"This group has seen relative net margins expand by 50 basis points in just three months, and its net margin profile now exceeds that of the broader market by nearly 400 basis points,\" Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley's chief investment officer, said in the note.\n\n\"In our view, it is no coincidence that this is occurring as the market becomes increasingly focused on earnings quality and margin expansion,\" he continued. \"Attention is shifting toward operational efficiency, and AI adoption is a key driver.\"\n\nHere's the full list of AI adopter stocks that Morgan Stanley is bullish on.\n\nAlphabet\n\nTicker:GOOGL Sector: Communication Services AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"We view GOOGL as the leading full-stack AI winner\"\n\nRoblox\n\nTicker:RBLX Sector: Communication Services AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"In our view, RBLX is one of the clearest AI adoption success stories in SMID Internet, with AI embedded across creation, discovery, safety, and localization.\"\n\nMeta Platforms\n\nTicker:META Sector: Communication Services AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"Management has reported a 30% increase in output per engineer since the start of 2025 driven by agentic coding adoption\"\n\nGrindr\n\nTicker:GRND Sector: Communication Services AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"AI is accelerating product development, helping the app add additional experiences (such as relationships) along with launch entirely new segments such as a telehealth business with limited resources.\"\n\nAmazon\n\nTicker:AMZN Sector: Consumer Discretionary AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"AMZN's Retail business is, in our view, an under-appreciated GenAI winner\"\n\nNavan\n\nTicker:NAVN Sector: Consumer Discretionary AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"Its AI-powered virtual agent Ava handles 55% of all support interactions without human intervention — at CSAT scores exceeding human agents — and has contributed approximately 1,100 basis points of non-GAAP gross margin improvement over two years by replacing human travel agents in COGS.\"\n\neBay\n\nTicker:EBAY Sector: Consumer Discretionary AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"We view EBAY as an underappreciated winner as agentic eCommerce scales. We think EBAY's large, unique, and used/C2C-focused inventory differentiates it from other eCommerce platforms and improves its visibility in horizontal agents like Gemini.\"\n\nJPMorgan Chase\n\nTicker:JPM Sector: Financials AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"The largest US bank has made AI a firm-wide strategic priority, with AI viewed as critical to future success. JPM has the largest technology budget among our US bank coverage at ~$20B in 2026, of which roughly $2.3B is tied directly to AI. The bank has deployed nearly 1,000 AI use cases across functions, with roughly 50 already having 'significant' measurable impact.\"\n\nSEI Investments\n\nTicker:SEIC Sector: Financials AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"AI is driving positive results by improving scalability, strengthening client service, and expanding its value proposition.\"\n\nRocket Companies\n\nTicker:RKT Sector: Financials AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"RKT is deploying AI across the full mortgage value chain. Despite concerns mortgage originators are AI-exposed, we see RKT as a relative beneficiary, particularly when rates decline. RKT is deploying AI across customer acquisition, document processing, underwriting, servicing and refinance recapture.\"\n\nBlackstone\n\nTicker:BX Sector: Financials AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"Within its investment business, Blackstone is leveraging AI to streamline due diligence, analyze proprietary assets, and improve investment decision-making.\"\n\nBank of New York Mellon\n\nTicker:BNY Sector: Financials AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"'AI for everyone, everywhere, and everything' mantra encapsules BNY's early, enterprise-wide AI adoption strategy that is showing through in strong operating leverage. All employees use BNY's proprietary AI engine called Eliza, a multiagentic, model-agnostic platform running OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic models.\"\n\nBank of America\n\nTicker:BAC Sector: Financials AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"BAC has been an early-mover in AI adoption, leveraging its Erica AI platform across the firm for several years.\"\n\nHinge Health\n\nTicker: HNGE Sector: Health Care AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"The adoption of AI tools is key factor helping Hinge Health to scale its business efficiently, keeping its physical therapist and health coach head count relatively flat the past 2 years as revenue doubled.\"\n\nOmada Health\n\nTicker:OMDA Sector: Health Care AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"Omada is using AI tools to drive productivity, keeping its care team flat the past few years even as the business has doubled. Gross margin has increased by 1500 bps the last 3 years to 68% and we expect continued leverage through AI to lead management to increase its long-term gross margin target of 70%+ at its first Investor Day in September.\"\n\nHeartflow\n\nTicker:HTFL Sector: Health Care AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"Pureplay AI/software. HTFL's platform uses machine learning and advanced computational fluid dynamics to create a personalized 3D model of a patient's coronary arteries and plaque composition based on a single CCTA scan, allowing physicians to make more informed risk-staging and treatment decisions.\"\n\nAxon Enterprise\n\nTicker:AXON Sector: Industrials AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"AXON is an AI adopter through products such as Draft One, which applies generative AI to report writing, alongside tools that support evidence transcription, policy retrieval and video review.\"\n\nJohnson Controls\n\nTicker:JCI Sector: Industrials AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"HVAC systems can account for 30-40% of a building's energy usage, so efficiency is key, and rising electricity prices only make it more valuable. JCI's investments in AI adoption, such as the Nantum AI acquisition, support an improved digital ecosystem, including advanced analytics and optimization, remote monitoring, and predictive maintenance.\"\n\nHawkEye 360\n\nTicker:HAWK Sector: Industrials AI role: Adopter Commentary: \"HawkEye employs non-generative AI-based technology to accelerate the processing speeds of new emitter types, complemented by proprietary algorithms acquired through its 2025 purchase of Innovative Signal Analysis (ISA)\"\n\nSnowflake\n\nTicker:SNOW Sector: Information Technology AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"Snowflake is a two-sided AI story: AI as a revenue driver and AI as an operatingleverage lever.\"\n\nPalantir Technologies\n\nTicker:PLTR Sector: Information Technology AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"Palantir's core value proposition is not selling AI infrastructure — it is deploying AI operationally inside enterprises and governments to drive workflow automation and real-world productivity outcomes, with its forward-deployed engineer model allowing customers to realize early success on GenAI initiatives in a way that, in our view, represents a near-peak relative advantage at this stage of the cycle.\"\n\nCadence Design Systems\n\nTicker:CDNS Sector: Information Technology AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"Cadence has emerged as the leader in Agentic AI within EDA, building on its AI-powered design optimization tools launched in 2021.\"\n\nVistra\n\nTicker:VST Sector: Utilities AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"VST is embedding AI solutions throughout its generation fleet to better optimize capacity forecasting, plant reliability (through predictive maintenance and valuesbased maintenance), efficiency, and performance management. Through its Retail business, the company is also deploying AI to manage energy flows in real time, resulting in a more responsive and efficient grid.\"\n\nNextEra Energy\n\nTicker:NEE Sector: Utilities AI role: Enabler/Adopter Commentary: \"NEE is deploying AI across its operations, including financial analysis, strategic planning, field work intelligence, work scheduling, grid optimization, energy forecasting, customer service, and operations management.\"", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/morgan-stanley-says-to-snatch-up-these-24-ai-adopter-stocks-as-their-profit", "canonical_source": "https://www.machinebrief.com/news/morgan-stanley-says-to-snatch-up-these-24-ai-adopter-stocks-0jqu", "published_at": "2026-08-04 10:46:28+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-04 12:39:44.787840+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Morgan Stanley", "Alphabet", "Roblox", "eBay", "Bank of America", "Mike Wilson"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/morgan-stanley-says-to-snatch-up-these-24-ai-adopter-stocks-as-their-profit", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/morgan-stanley-says-to-snatch-up-these-24-ai-adopter-stocks-as-their-profit.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/morgan-stanley-says-to-snatch-up-these-24-ai-adopter-stocks-as-their-profit.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/morgan-stanley-says-to-snatch-up-these-24-ai-adopter-stocks-as-their-profit.jsonld"}}