The Best Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks to Buy With $1,000 Right Now

MRVL is the cleaner way to express AI capex because it sits closer to the infrastructure bottleneck where hyperscaler spending is still underpenetrated and harder to unwind. The second-order effect is that custom silicon and network attach can take share from more generic compute spend, which matters if cloud budgets shift from broad GPU purchases toward lower-cost, workload-specific architectures over the next 12-24 months. That also creates a relative loser set: merchant silicon and legacy networking vendors with less design-in visibility may see pricing pressure as customers demand more customized, power-efficient solutions.

The key risk is not demand, but digestion. If AI customers are front-loading orders, MRVL can show a few strong quarters before growth normalizes, so the stock is most vulnerable if guidance inflects from acceleration to merely sustainment. In that scenario, the market will likely de-rate the multiple before fundamentals roll over, because the equity is already pricing a cleaner path to earnings leverage than the broader semiconductor group.

SOUN is a different trade: it is a sentiment-and-story name with a much longer commercialization curve, so the market will reward evidence of repeatability rather than just deal count. The consensus may be underestimating churn risk and deployment friction in voice automation, where proof of ROI can take several quarters and revenue recognition can lag headline wins. If enterprise AI budgets tighten, conversational AI is more exposed to pushouts than core infrastructure because it competes with other software spend and lacks the same mission-critical lock-in.

Contrarian view: the article treats both names as beneficiaries of an indiscriminate AI wave, but the spread in quality is huge. MRVL likely deserves a premium because it is attached to scarce, capital-intensive infrastructure demand; SOUN may need a much lower entry point or a financed structure to offset execution risk. The better trade is to own the infrastructure winner and fade the higher-beta application layer if the AI complex broadens out.