The artificial intelligence trade that defined Wall Street for the better part of two years is showing cracks. After a relentless run-up in semiconductor and mega-cap technology stocks, a growing chorus of analysts and portfolio managers is warning that the easy money in AI has already been made — and that the next wave of outperformance will come from companies that actually use AI to transform their businesses, not the ones selling the picks and shovels.
The shift in sentiment has been swift. Nvidia, which became the poster child of the AI boom, has seen its stock retreat from all-time highs as investors question whether the billions pouring into data centers will translate into proportional returns. Meanwhile, a new class of stock picks is emerging from some of Wall Street’s most closely watched strategists — names like Carvana, DoorDash, and Walt Disney that may seem surprising at first glance but share a common thread: they stand to benefit enormously from AI-driven efficiency gains without carrying the valuation baggage of the pure-play AI trade.
The Great Rotation: From AI Builders to AI Beneficiaries
According to a detailed report from Business Insider, several top Wall Street strategists have been quietly repositioning their recommended portfolios away from the companies building AI infrastructure and toward those deploying it. The logic is straightforward: as AI tools become commoditized and widely available, the competitive advantage shifts to companies that can integrate these tools into their operations to cut costs, improve customer experiences, and expand margins.
This is not a fringe view. The rotation reflects a broader reassessment of where value creation will occur in the next phase of the technology cycle. During the dot-com era, the biggest winners of the late 1990s — the fiber-optic cable layers and server manufacturers — were not the biggest winners of the 2000s. That distinction belonged to companies like Amazon and Google, which built transformative businesses on top of the infrastructure. Many on Wall Street believe a similar dynamic is playing out now.
Carvana: The Used-Car Dealer That Wall Street Can’t Stop Talking About
Among the most eye-catching picks highlighted by analysts is Carvana, the online used-car retailer that nearly went bankrupt in 2022 before staging one of the most dramatic corporate turnarounds in recent memory. The company’s stock has surged as it demonstrated an ability to use data analytics and AI-powered pricing models to optimize its inventory, reduce reconditioning costs, and improve the accuracy of its vehicle valuations.
Carvana’s management has been vocal about the role that machine learning plays in its operations. The company uses algorithms to determine which vehicles to purchase at auction, how to price them for resale, and how to route logistics across its national network of inspection and reconditioning centers. As Business Insider reported, analysts see Carvana as a prime example of a company where AI adoption is not a marketing slogan but a genuine operational advantage that shows up in the income statement. The company’s GPU (gross profit per unit) has improved markedly, and bulls argue there is still significant room for margin expansion as these tools are refined.
DoorDash: Logistics, Algorithms, and the Last Mile
DoorDash, the food and grocery delivery giant, is another name that has surfaced repeatedly in analyst recommendations for the post-AI-panic era. The company’s entire business model is, at its core, an optimization problem — matching supply (restaurants and stores) with demand (hungry consumers) through a fleet of independent drivers, all in real time and at scale.
The company has invested heavily in AI and machine learning to improve delivery times, reduce driver idle time, and predict demand surges before they happen. These investments have contributed to DoorDash’s improving unit economics, a metric that had long been a source of skepticism among investors. The company has also expanded beyond restaurant delivery into grocery, convenience, and even retail delivery, using its algorithmic backbone to enter adjacent markets with relatively low incremental cost. Wall Street strategists cited by Business Insider view DoorDash as a company with a long runway for growth, particularly as AI enables it to serve more delivery categories with greater efficiency.
Walt Disney: The House of Mouse Gets an AI Makeover
Perhaps the most intriguing name on the list is Walt Disney. The entertainment conglomerate has faced no shortage of headwinds in recent years — from the costly ramp-up of Disney+, to the post-pandemic normalization of its theme parks, to the broader challenges facing linear television. Yet several analysts now argue that Disney is uniquely positioned to benefit from AI in ways that the market has not yet fully priced in.
On the streaming side, AI-driven content recommendation engines and personalized advertising are expected to significantly improve Disney+’s average revenue per user and reduce churn. The company has already begun experimenting with AI tools in its content production pipeline, from visual effects to scriptwriting assistance, which could meaningfully reduce the cost of producing the volume of content needed to compete with Netflix and other rivals. At the theme parks, Disney has been using AI and data analytics to optimize pricing, manage crowd flow, and personalize guest experiences through its MagicBand and app technologies. Analysts see these applications as margin-enhancing and scalable, making Disney a compelling pick for investors looking for AI exposure outside the technology sector.
The Broader Market Context: Why the AI Trade Is Fracturing
The emergence of these stock picks does not exist in a vacuum. It comes against a backdrop of genuine anxiety about the sustainability of the AI infrastructure buildout. Capital expenditure plans from hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have reached staggering levels — hundreds of billions of dollars collectively — and investors are increasingly asking when, and whether, these investments will generate adequate returns. The concern is not that AI is overhyped as a technology, but that the market may have gotten ahead of itself in rewarding the companies at the top of the supply chain.
This anxiety was compounded earlier in 2025 by the emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab that demonstrated competitive large language model performance at a fraction of the cost of Western counterparts. The DeepSeek episode sent shockwaves through the semiconductor sector and raised uncomfortable questions about whether the massive GPU orders from U.S. tech giants represented rational capital allocation or a fear-driven arms race. Nvidia shares dropped sharply on the news, and while they have partially recovered, the episode served as a wake-up call for investors who had treated the AI hardware trade as a one-way bet.
What the Analysts Are Actually Saying
The strategists profiled by Business Insider are not arguing that AI infrastructure stocks are doomed. Rather, their thesis is that the risk-reward profile has shifted. The enormous gains in Nvidia, Broadcom, and related names have compressed the upside for new investors, while the downside risks — from demand normalization, geopolitical disruption, or technological commoditization — have grown. By contrast, companies like Carvana, DoorDash, and Disney trade at valuations that do not yet fully reflect the earnings uplift that AI adoption could deliver over the next two to three years.
This is a nuanced argument, and it requires investors to think differently about what constitutes an “AI stock.” The market has largely defined the category by reference to the technology supply chain — chipmakers, cloud providers, and enterprise software companies. But the next phase of value creation may look very different, favoring companies with large, complex operations, rich proprietary data sets, and the organizational capacity to integrate AI tools into their workflows at scale.
The Risk Factors That Could Derail the Thesis
No investment thesis is without risk, and the case for these AI beneficiary stocks carries its own set of vulnerabilities. Carvana, despite its turnaround, still carries a significant debt load from its near-death experience and operates in a cyclical industry sensitive to interest rates and consumer credit conditions. DoorDash faces intense competition from Uber Eats and Instacart, and its path to sustained profitability, while improving, is not yet assured. Disney, meanwhile, must manage a complex portfolio of businesses — some growing, some shrinking — while executing a technological transformation under the leadership of CEO Bob Iger, who has signaled that AI will be central to the company’s strategy going forward.
There is also the macro environment to consider. With interest rates remaining elevated by post-2020 standards and consumer spending showing signs of fatigue in certain categories, the earnings growth that these companies need to justify their current valuations — let alone higher ones — is not guaranteed. A recession or a meaningful slowdown in consumer spending could undermine the bull case regardless of how effectively these companies deploy AI.
Where the Smart Money Is Headed Next
For institutional investors and market watchers, the message from Wall Street’s latest round of stock picks is clear: the AI investment story is entering a new chapter. The first chapter was about hardware and infrastructure — the GPUs, the data centers, the cloud platforms. The next chapter will be about application and execution — which companies can take the tools now available and turn them into durable competitive advantages.
The stocks being highlighted today — Carvana, DoorDash, Disney, and others like them — represent a bet on that second chapter. Whether they ultimately deliver will depend not just on the technology itself, but on management execution, competitive dynamics, and the broader economic environment. But for investors who believe the AI revolution is real and lasting, the most interesting opportunities may no longer be found in Silicon Valley. They may be found in a used-car lot, a delivery driver’s route, or a theme park in Orlando.