3 Top AI Stocks to Buy With $1,000 Right Now

If you've got $1,000 burning a hole in your pocket that you're itching to invest, I've got three stocks that look like strong buys right now. All are set to be long-term beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence (AI) build-out, and buying them now secures your involvement in that future.

The three stocks I think are solid AI picks right now are Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), and Nebius (NASDAQ: NBIS). All of these companies are experiencing strong growth, and that could ramp up as AI becomes more prevalent.

Amazon

Amazon's involvement in the AI build-out stems from its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is seeing monster demand for its computing resources, which is driving it to spend a whopping $200 billion on capital expenditures to expand its data center footprint this year alone. This $200 billion investment isn't speculative; Amazon already has agreements with several companies to lease this increased capacity.

Another reason why Amazon's platform is growing in popularity is that it has developed a set of custom AI chips that provide processing power at a lower price than GPUs. This business unit is growing at a triple-digit percentage rate year-over-year and has nearly sold out capacity for its latest chip generation, Trainium3. Its next generation, Trainium4, is nearly sold out already, even though those chips won't be available for 18 months.

This all adds up to a business unit that's thriving, and with it growing in Q1 at a 28% pace (its fastest rate in 15 quarters), it makes for a strong case to buy the stock. AWS accounts for over half of Amazon's operating profits, so as AWS goes, so goes Amazon.

Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms may be making some major investments in its own AI business, but on Wall Street, it's only being valued like an advertising company right now. Yet its ad business on its social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, has been heavily impacted by its AI improvements. In part due to that, Meta's revenue rose 33% year over year in Q1. However, if one of the new AI products it's developing, such as its personal superintelligence model or its AI smartglasses, pans out, its top line could grow even faster.

Despite the strength of its core business and the potential upsides of its future products, Meta's stock is still trading at a rather cheap valuation.

META Price to CFO Per Share (TTM) data by YCharts

For Meta, 12.5 times operating cash flow is a historically cheap level, outside of the depths it reached in early 2023 after investors had sold off the tech sector. Meta looks like a strong deal right now, and if any of its AI bets pay off, the stock could be primed for major upside.

Nebius

Few companies are growing as fast as Nebius is. The neocloud company provides a full-stack computing solution that has become a widely popular platform to train and run AI models on. It has attracted major investment dollars from Nvidia, which also inked a deal with the data center operator that will give it first access to its cutting-edge hardware. Meta Platforms is a major Nebius client, and has signed a large deal that will bring years of growth to the neocloud.

Nebius' growth rate has been nothing short of incredible. Overall revenue rose 684% year over year in Q1. Wall Street analysts expect 549% revenue growth in 2026 and 219% growth in 2027.

The stock is up by over 600% since 2025, but if you think you missed the boat with Nebius, think again -- that gain was still less than its revenue growth rate. That mismatch could provide a compelling long-term investment opportunity.

Keithen Drury has positions in Amazon, Meta Platforms, Nebius Group, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.