Goldman Sachs pinpoints the 5 stocks that will get the biggest productivity boost from AI-awdailynews

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2025-11-19

Goldman Sachs pinpoints the 5 stocks that will get the biggest productivity boost from AI

Goldman Sachs flags five stocks set for major productivity gains from AI adoption.
Companies with high labor costs and AI automation exposure may see the biggest profit boosts.
H&R Block, Robert Half, and Cognizant are among the big potential winners.

As hyperscalers invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure, investors are starting to wonder when they will finally see the technology boost the earnings of small- and mid-cap stocks.

Goldman Sachs says the stock market winners are grouped into distinct phases of AI development. Although hardware makers like Nvidia are the big gainers in the current phase, the bank think investors should be thinking about the next phase.

“Despite ongoing adoption, returns within the AI complex have remained concentrated in the infrastructure complex rather than the application or productivity layer,” analysts led by the bank’s chief US equity strategist, David Kostin, wrote.

The bank said investors should watch a handful of stocks as potential future beneficiaries of the coming phase, which will be defined by AI-driven productivity gains.

“The combination of continued corporate AI adoption and concerns about the risks to the AI infrastructure complex has increased recent investor focus on the next beneficiaries of the ever-expanding AI trade,” the analysts said.

About half of the companies that have reported earnings so far this season talked about AI, the bank said, but only a few have been able to point to real gains.

So, which companies are next in line for an AI-driven profits boost? Goldman has some ideas.

The analysts highlighted a handful of firms that are most sensitive to AI disrupting their labor force and have the highest labor costs, and are therefore among the potential beneficiaries of AI-fueled productivity gains.

We list five stocks flagged by the bank, along with their share of wage costs exposed to AI automation, wage costs as a percentage of sales, and the average percentile rank of those two variables among Russell 1000 companies.

H&R Block