Why invest in artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a constantly evolving, long-term trend

Equity investors should understand the impact of AI on investment opportunities

We see infrastructure and innovation as the two main AI investment thrusts

What comes to mind when we talk about AI?

Innovation, technology, disruption, ‘new generation’ – we all have ChatGPT in mind. ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just two months after its launch in February 2023, an all-time high.¹ As of October 2025, more than 800 million people use ChatGPT every week.² However, AI is far more extensive than this; it is a constantly evolving subject, and a long-term trend that will impact economic and human activity. AI is expected to increase productivity, helps reduce costs and increase creative capacity in many areas.

There are several types of AI

First of all, generative AI is a technology that can create new and sophisticated content across a range of fields including text, images, programming (code), music and video. Next, agentic AI is capable of making its own decisions in the digital space, and independently performs complex workflows without needing constant human orientation. Finally, the most sophisticated is physical AI, which applies generative, agentic AI to automation and robotics in the real, physical world.

What makes AI particularly interesting?

As an investment theme, it is its cross-cutting impact across all sectors, from healthcare to financial services, from manufacturing to retail, entertainment and agriculture. With its integration into our daily lives, we should see the emergence of new business models – just as the emergence and rise of smartphones has led to the creation of new services such as mobility and e-commerce. For equity investors, it’s important to understand that AI is poised to rip up investment opportunities.

A few figures to illustrate the situation

We estimate that AI has added more than 100 billion dollars to the economy in 2022³, and McKinsey estimates it could reach 23,000 billion dollars by 2034.⁴This is more than 100 times the current AI value added in less than 20 years – it’s unprecedented. In terms of generative AI, Bloomberg Intelligence’s forecasts are striking; the revenue associated with generative AI could increase from $36 billion in 2022, to $1,800 billion by 2032⁵ – a potential value estimate multiplied by 50 in just ten years. In 2022, it was estimated that AI accounted for only 0.1% of global GDP.⁶ This illustrates the considerable potential that remains to be exploited over the next decade.

How to invest in AI*

We see two main thrusts: infrastructure and innovation. AI infrastructure is where we’ll find companies building technological bases to generate AI – this includes semiconductors, specialist electronics chips, cloud companies and data providers. Well-known players include NVIDIA, which makes graphics cards, and is at the heart of AI’s technological advancement.⁷ Microsoft is a key player in the AI ecosystem, through its partnership with OpenAI and its Cloud Azure, which hosts and distributes AI models on a large scale for businesses.⁸ Finally, we could mention Oracle, which provides a full range of cloud applications and integrated platform services and benefits from exposure to government AI investments that require sovereign infrastructure.

Innovators include companies that use AI to transform business models, improve their competitive position, or develop completely new products and services. Players include Shopify, a top performing e-commerce platform that integrates AI tools to customise product recommendations, generate automatic product descriptions, and optimise inventory management and marketing campaigns. ServiceNow, the US based software company which is a pioneer in business process automation, integrates autonomous AI officers who perform complex tasks and make decisions according to pre-defined goals, automating actions such as incident resolution, writing and project management to unlock teams and increase productivity. Trip.com is a Chinese online travel group that relies on AI, including its TripGenie conversational assistant, which allows users to plan their trips on a map.

* Companies shown are for illustrative purposes only as of 22/10/2025. It does not constitute investment research or financial analysis relating to transactions in financial instruments, nor does it constitute an offer to buy or sell any investments, products or services, and should not be considered as solicitation or investment, legal or tax advice, a recommendation for an investment strategy or a personalised recommendation to buy or sell securities.

The investment universe is large

Whether it’s software or hardware, the area of AI can apply to a wide range of business areas, and we expect AI to be omnipresent in almost every industry. One example can be seen in Recursion Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company that is using AI to speed up drug discovery and get it approved in less than a year instead of three years at lower costs – a major step forward in the healthcare world.⁹ Meanwhile in Japan, Kawasaki Heavy Industries is using AI to carry out rail maintenance and inspection, reducing operational costs by more than 200 million $ per year, or 26,000 hours of labour.¹⁰

Why invest in AI now?

In 10 years’ time, we may be able to say that today was an ideal time to invest in AI. We believe this is a major investment opportunity, with which to take a long-term view, so we are investing in AI with conviction and enthusiasm, as it is already redefining the future of global economic growth.

• [1] {https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-sets-record-fastest-growing-user-base-analyst-note-2023-02-01/;ChatGPT sets record for fastest-growing user base – analyst note}
• [2] {https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/06/sam-altman-says-chatgpt-has-hit-800m-weekly-active-users/;Sam Altman says ChatGPT has hit 800M weekly active users}
• [3] Source: AXA IM, September 2025
• [4] {https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai;The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation}
• [5] {https://sponsored.bloomberg.com/immersive/globalx/charting-disruption/paradigm-shifting-technologies;Paradigm-Shifting Technologies}
• [6] Source: AXA IM, September 2025
• [7] {https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-factory-growth-intelligence/;Everywhere, All at Once: NVIDIA Drives the Next Phase of AI Growth}
• [8] {https://iot-analytics.com/leading-generative-ai-companies/;The leading generative AI companies}
• [9] {https://www.recursion.com/platform;Recursion OS: The AI platform to industrialize drug discovery}
• [10] {https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/customer-stories/reinventing-maintenance-operations-with-ai/;Reinventing Maintenance Operations With cuOpt and Jetson Orin}