We recently compiled a list of the Top 10 AI News Updates Analysts are Monitoring. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN) stands against the other AI stocks.

Are we in an artificial intelligence hype cycle, and will the cycle ever turn into meaningful value for enterprises?

That’s the big question as investors question whether revolutionary technology has been hyped out of proportion. Amid the concerns, Silicon Valley investors and tech giants remain optimistic that the technology at the heart of the fourth industrial revolution will one day deliver trillions of dollars in business value.

“We are definitely in a hype cycle, especially for generative AI,” said Konstantine Buhler, a partner at Sequoia Capital, speaking on a panel at The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Network Summit on Monday.

Some corporate technology leaders claim they cannot wait for AI to improve or demonstrate its long-term worth despite the technology's return on investment taking longer. Customer service and code writing are currently the first fields where AI is promising, but the revolutionary developments that will yield those trillions may still be some time off.

If there is something history has shown is that generating returns from new technology investments is a high-pressure game that takes some time. According to Buhler, it took many years to generate significant returns from AI's first and second eras despite trillions of dollars in market capitalization being created in the 2000s.

Despite the growing concerns about how long it will take to generate returns from AI investments, companies and businesses are increasingly integrating the revolutionary technology to enhance operations and efficiency. While American banks have been using AI for years to spot frauds, it's only now that most are betting big on the technology.

In the past year, banks led by JPMorgan have rolled out large language models for more employees. Additionally, the banks use generative artificial intelligence in call centers for agents. At JPMorgan, over 200,000 people have an AI tool at their desks.

According to Teresa Heitsenrether, JPMorgan’s chief data and analytics officer, it is still early to start seeing productivity gains across the bank in integrating AI.

“It’s very early innings. First we want to put the tool in people’s hands, and let them be able to ask questions and get answers. That already starts to spawn ideas, innovation, some productivity,” Heitsenrether said.

While the focus has been on AI’s monetary value, the International Monetary Fund notes that AI will affect 40% of jobs worldwide. While technology is expected to complement most jobs, it will replace some.

“In advanced economies, about 60 percent of jobs may be impacted by AI. Roughly half the exposed jobs may benefit from AI integration, enhancing productivity. For the other half, AI applications may execute key tasks currently performed by humans, which could lower labor demand, leading to lower wages and reduced hiring,” IMF said in a blog post.

AI stands out for its capacity to influence highly skilled occupations. As a result, compared to emerging markets and developing economies, advanced economies face more risks from AI but also have more opportunities to take advantage of its advantages.

For this article, we selected AI news updates by going through news articles, stock analyses, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds as of Q4 2024.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Close-up of a technician's hands adjusting a communication router.

Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 44

Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN) is a communication services company that offers integrated products and services to business and residential customers. It offers dark fiber, edge cloud services, internet protocol, managed security, and software-defined wide area networks. On February 25, the company confirmed it had selected Ciena as its preferred optical vendor to enhance its network infrastructure for AI workloads.

The partnership will enable the implementation of WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) technology, which features the industry’s first 1.6 Tb/s coherent transceiver powered by 3nm silicon. As a result, Lumen will be better equipped to provide highly customized, scalable connectivity services to leading cloud and data center providers trying to keep up with the rise in workloads related to artificial intelligence (AI) and related traffic.

In addition, Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN) should enjoy significant benefits, including a 50% reduction in space and power per bit. As data center operators deal with growing power limitations and sustainability demands in the midst of the AI boom, these efficiency gains are especially important.

Overall LUMN ranks 3rd on our list of the AI stocks analysts are monitoring. While we acknowledge the potential of LUMN as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than LUMN but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

 

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap.

 

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.