By Geoffrey Seiler – Apr 5, 2026 at 3:27PM EST
Key Points
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AMD and Arm Holdings are well-positioned as chip leaders for the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) agents.
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Salesforce’s transition to a master of records for AI agents is being underappreciated by the market.
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ServiceNow and UiPath have big opportunities in agentic AI orchestration.
AMD and Arm: The hardware plays
With the rise of agentic AI, the architecture of data centers will have to be reconfigured. AI data centers today are all about providing the raw power to train large language models (LLMs) and run AI inference. This is largely done through graphics processing units (GPUs) and, in some cases, AI ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) specifically developed for these tasks. However, these compute-heavy chips are not ideal for handling the requirements of AI agents.
Instead, this work will fall to high-performance central processing units (CPUs), which act more the brain of a computer. These chips will help AI agents stop and think before acting, and let them better interact with other software. And with the rise of AI agents, the ratio of GPUs to CPUs is set to close materially.
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NASDAQ: AMD
Advanced Micro Devices
Today’s Change
(3.36%) $7.06
Current Price
$217.27
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$355B
Day’s Range
$200.63 – $217.77
52wk Range
$76.48 – $267.08
Volume
1.6M
Avg Vol
38M
Gross Margin
45.99%
The two companies that look poised to best benefit from this opportunity are Advanced Micro Devices (AMD +3.36%) and Arm Holdings (ARM 3.84%). AMD is the market leader in data center CPUs, and it is aggressively going after this opportunity. With its new Venice architecture, it’s moving to a chiplet design with high core counts designed specifically for agentic AI. Note that the number of cores controls how many tasks a CPU can handle simultaneously.
Arm, meanwhile, recently announced the bold move of designing its own data center CPUs. The company has traditionally been a provider of intellectual property (IP) to the semiconductor industry, but it views this opportunity as being so large that it has decided to make actual chips. It was recently projected that the data center CPU market will grow to $100 billion in the next five years and that it thinks it can capture a 15% market .
Salesforce: The master of records for agentic AI
A lot of companies are going after creating AI agents, but the one that really stands out is Salesforce (CRM +0.41%).
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NYSE: CRM
Salesforce
Today’s Change
(0.41%) $0.77
Current Price
$187.01
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$173B
Day’s Range
$181.61 – $187.56
52wk Range
$174.57 – $296.05
Volume
338K
Avg Vol
13M
Gross Margin
75.28%
Dividend Yield
0.89%
The company’s bread-and-butter has been breaking down data silos between departments. However, it recently upped its game with the introduction of Data 360, which uses a technology called zero copy that can grab data from outside sources data warehouses and cloud providers without the slow and costly process of transferring it. It then bought Informatica to help it help clean up, govern, and structure all this data.
AI agents need access to clean, consistent, structured data to avoid costly mistakes, and Salesforce has set itself up to be a master of records from which to launch AI agents. The market has very much dismissed this transition, making it a great way to play the upcoming agentic AI boom.
ServiceNow and UiPath: The AI orchestration layer providers
The third big way to play the agentic AI boom is through AI orchestration. With so many vendors chasing agentic AI, organizations will have a system in place to manage and govern all these outside AI agents. Two companies at the forefront of this are ServiceNow (NOW 1.96%) and UiPath (PATH +1.86%).
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NYSE: NOW
ServiceNow
Today’s Change
(-1.96%) $-2.04
Current Price
$102.00
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$107B
Day’s Range
$98.45 – $103.41
52wk Range
$98.00 – $211.48
Volume
17M
Avg Vol
19M
Gross Margin
77.53%
ServiceNow’s IT management platform essentially acts as the internal plumbing of its customers, helping them orchestrate their various software solutions. It is now extending that expertise to AI agents with its AI Control Tower solution. Given its deep integration into its customers’ entire technical infrastructures, it is well-positioned to lead in this area.
Another company with a great opportunity in this space is UiPath with its Maestro platform. The company is already a leader in robotic process automation (RPA), and it is taking that governance and guardrail foundation and applying it to AI agents. What differentiates UiPath is that Maestro can manage and assign the most appropriate tasks to AI agents or cheaper software bots, saving its customers money.
The agentic revolution
Agentic AI is set to be the next big trend, and there is the potential for multiple winners to emerge. Investing $5,000 into these five stocks (combined or separately) could be a great way to play the various aspects of this emerging technology.
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About the Author
Geoffrey Seiler is a contributing Motley Fool stock market analyst covering technology, consumer goods, healthcare, energy, and materials stocks. Prior to The Motley Fool, Geoffrey was a senior equity analyst at Raging Capital Management, a $600 million long-short hedge fund. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Haverford College.
Stocks Mentioned

Advanced Micro Devices
NASDAQ: AMD
$217.27
(+3.36%)+$7.06

Salesforce
NYSE: CRM
$187.18
(+0.51%)+$0.94

ServiceNow
NYSE: NOW
$101.98
(-1.98%)-$2.07

UiPath
NYSE: PATH
$11.24
(+2.00%)+$0.22

Arm Holdings
NASDAQ: ARM
$149.11
(-3.84%)-$5.96
*Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Cost basis and return based on previous market day close.
Sumber Artikel:
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