Warren Buffett's Successor Greg Abel Just Dumped Amazon Stock: 2 AI Stocks He Is Still Bullish On

Berkshire Hathaway under new CEO Greg Abel is still leaning into AI exposure through Alphabet and Apple, even after exiting Amazon. Alphabet is highlighted as a major AI beneficiary, with Berkshire increasing its stake by 204% in the first quarter and Alphabet's cloud backlog reaching $460 billion, nearly doubling sequentially. Apple remains Berkshire's largest holding and is portrayed as well-positioned through AI-enhanced devices, a strong services business, and durable brand-driven pricing power.

Analysis

Berkshire’s AI exposure is increasingly a quality-duration trade rather than a pure “AI winners” basket. The real second-order effect is that the firm is leaning into platforms with embedded distribution and monetization power, which should let them capture AI spend without needing to win the model layer. That matters because capital intensity is moving up across the sector; firms with existing cash flows and customer relationships can out-invest smaller peers while keeping returns on incremental capital acceptable.

Alphabet is the cleaner beneficiary on a 6-18 month horizon because AI is reinforcing rather than disrupting its core funnel. The market still underappreciates how much of its AI upside is defensive: better search and cloud economics can stabilize pricing power even if headline query behavior shifts. The key risk is not AI competition itself, but margin compression from elevated inference and data-center capex before monetization catches up.

Apple is a slower-burning AI winner, but the equity may deserve a re-rating if on-device AI increases hardware replacement urgency and raises the stickiness of the ecosystem. The contrarian point is that consensus likely overstates near-term AI monetization and understates how much Apple can extract through services attach and upgrade cycles. The main disconfirming catalyst would be a weak consumer handset cycle or regulation that chips away at ecosystem switching costs.

Amazon’s exit should not be read as an AI-negative signal so much as a capital-allocation preference away from a more operationally complex winner. The underappreciated risk for AMZN is that AI accelerates competition in cloud pricing and model access, limiting its ability to reaccelerate margin expansion. In contrast, Berkshire’s current posture implies a preference for AI exposure where the upside is visible in free cash flow, not just narrative optionality.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long GOOGL over the next 3-6 months; best risk/reward in large-cap AI because cloud upside and AI search improvements can compound without relying on a perfect product-cycle outcome.
• Pair trade: long GOOGL / short AMZN for 6-12 months; thesis is that Alphabet’s AI monetization is clearer while Amazon faces greater margin risk from AI-driven cloud competition and heavier capex.
• Add AAPL on weakness for a 12-18 month horizon; use it as a slower AI beneficiary with lower execution risk, especially if on-device AI features begin to support replacement cycles.
• Buy GOOGL Jan-2027 calls or call spreads if implied vol remains reasonable; upside convexity is attractive because the market may still be underpricing multi-year cloud backlog conversion.
• Avoid chasing AMZN on AI headlines until there is evidence of sustained AWS reacceleration; if entering, hedge with a GOOGL long to isolate relative execution rather than market beta.