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Google May Define Agentic AI… but These Stocks Will…
Eric Fry
Editor, Smart Money
WEEKLY ROUNDUP
Google May Define Agentic AI… but These Stocks Will Make Investors Richer
Hello, Reader.
Google says it’s preparing to “define the agentic AI era.”
That’s the message from Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) heading into this week’s massive I/O conference. (I/O stands for Input/Output, a foundational computer science term referencing communication between a computing system and the outside world.)
But if history is any guide, investors chasing the companies building AI may eventually make the same mistake investors made during the dot-com boom: confusing the technology itself with the businesses that profit most from using it.
In the leadup to this year’s I/O, Google is heavily signaling that its next wave of AI announcements will focus on agentic AI.
Agentic systems are the “next generation” of AI technologies that can make decisions by themselves and adapt to changes. They are essentially like the?brain behind a smart assistant or AI robot, able to perceive their environment and act accordingly.
Previews of I/O 2026 point to upgrades around Project Astra, more capable Gemini agents, AI agents inside Search and Chrome, and developer tools for agentic workflows.
Now, new products announced at I/O can shift sentiment around AI. And the market is increasingly rewarding companies perceived as leaders in autonomous AI systems.
That’s because agentic AI is seen as the hottest next technological step after generative AI.
But when most people think about agentic AI, they think about the companies building it – like Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). They think about developer conferences and headline-grabbing announcements.
But the most interesting agentic AI stories are not unfolding in these spaces.
They are in the operations of seemingly ordinary companies.
History has a name for these companies. We call them the “Appliers,” and if history is any guide, many of them will thrive over the next few years.
They are quieter than the “Builders.” They generate fewer headlines and less spectacle, but they often generate surprising success.
Consider what happened during the birth of commercial radio. In the 1920s, a new technology called the “radio” was becoming the hottest technology of the early 20th century. More than 600 companies rushed into the radio manufacturing business during the boom. By 1934, only 18 remained.
The companies that survived – and eventually thrived – were not the radio-builders. They were the radio Appliers: the advertisers who used the airwaves to reach millions of consumers for the first time, the retailers who built national brands through radio sponsorships, the entertainment companies that turned programming into profit.
The Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) invented the soap opera – literally – to sell soap to the housewives who were listening. The technology itself was only as valuable as what people chose to do with it.
History suggests that the greatest returns of the AI era will go not to the companies that build the technology, but the companies that figure out what to do with it, profitably.
All else being equal, I trust history.
So, while Google says it will define the agentic AI era, I believe it will be the Appliers that actually do.
But not all Appliers are created equal. Not every company using AI has an advantage. We’ve reached the stage in the technological cycle where execution matters more than adoption.
I’ll share how to find Applier stocks that are being made stronger by agentic AI below. But first, let’s take a look back at what we covered here at Smart Moneylast week.
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Defining the Age of Agentic AI
The investing landscape of the last two years – where you could buy almost anything connected to AI and make money. That landscape no longer exists.
My stock-picking system is built to help me find those companies at the most promising moment. That includes Applier companies set to soar in the growing age of agentic AI.
And it is flagging several right now.
My system uses a host of proprietary indicators to unearth incredible opportunities. It scans over 14,000 stocks and crunches more than 120 billion data points a day. More than 3 trillion a month. It runs on the same underlying technology platform used by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
My system not only helps me identify winning Applier stocks, but it also helps me identify when to get in at a massive discount.
Agentic AI is about to create the kind of setup I’ve spent my career waiting for. You don’t have to wait for hyperscalers like Google to “define the agentic AI era.” Now is your chance to get in early and define it for yourself.
Click here to learn more about the specific stocks my system is flagging right now.
Regards,
Eric Fry
Editor, Smart Money
