Artificial intelligence took the tech world by storm at the end of 2022, with the introduction of ChatGPT and generative AI. The past few years have seen a tech boom, as AI proliferated through the digital world and an increasingly large array of other sectors.
Now we’re on the cusp of AI’s next wave, and the question is: how big will it get? According to market.us, in 2023, the global market for AI apps was worth $2.8 billion, but could that reach $128 billion by 2033.
In a recent industry note from Piper Sandler, the firm’s analysts believe a combination of advanced model optimization and growing GPU capacity is setting the stage for a broader surge in AI applications. “The application sector appears to be on the precipice of a new AI monetization wave with long-tail benefits that could accrue for the next decade,” the analysts wrote.
The Piper Sandler analysts are running with this thesis and picking out two AI software stocks as top picks for 2025. We’ve opened up the TipRanks database to find the broader Wall Street view on both. Let’s give them a closer look.
Snowflake (SNOW)
First up is Snowflake, a cloud software company in the field of data analytics. Snowflake gives its customers a cloud-based data platform that allows seamless access for the exploration, sharing, and use of accumulated data – with the goal of unlocking true value from stored information. The company’s cloud service has proven both popular and successful, and Snowflake’s Data Cloud harnesses the enormous potential of data at a global scale. Snowflake today boasts more than 11,000 global customers and handles over 6.3 billion daily queries.
Snowflake offers a wide range of services and products, based on cloud computing, and AI is prominent among them. Snowflake’s AI services let data teams analyze and use unstructured data, develop agentic applications, and put data to work training the models. The automation inherent in AI allows all of this to be done with minimal governance. The company’s Cortex AI product is designed to build gen AI apps, making use of fully managed LLMs, RAG and text-to-SQL services, and making AI services available for use with multiple users on a variety of interfaces. Snowflake’s moves into AI are based on the company’s core asset: single-platform data access, with a flexible and scalable architecture. It’s a base that is inherently adaptable to developing and training AI applications.
A look at some of Snowflake’s numbers will show just how popular the service has become in recent years: as of this past January, Snowflake had 580 customers with more than $1 million each in product revenue, and the company’s work backlog – the ‘remaining performance obligations’ – totalled $6.9 billion.
In its last quarterly report, covering fiscal 4Q25, Snowflake reported strong gains in revenue. Product revenue rose 28% year-over-year, to reach $943.3 million, while total revenue rose 27% y/y and hit $986.7 million – and beat expectations by over $30 million. At the bottom line, Snowflake’s EPS came in at $0.30. The company had an adjusted free cash flow of $423.1 million in the fiscal fourth quarter, and $941.5 million for the fiscal year 2025.
In his coverage of Snowflake, Piper Sandler’s Brent Bracelin notes the solid quality of the company from an investment perspective, writing, “CIO survey data supporting the case for increasing enterprise investments for both core workloads (~95% of ARR) and emerging data engineering and AI/ML workloads (~5% of ARR) reinforces our view on demand stabilization. SNOW is a high-quality database franchise approaching a $4B run-rate with a 25%+ FCF margin model. New CEO and product-first approach could begin to bear fruit in 2025.”
Bracelin sees several catalysts lined up to back this bullish stance, including: “1. Stabilization – Growth showing early signs of stabilization after three years of moderation; demand environment appears healthy with in-period NRR improving and cRPO growth stabilizing. 2. New innovations – Snowpark, Dynamic Tables, Cortex AI, and Notebook contribution is small at $200M+ ARR but growing triple-digits on y/y basis. Snowpark alone surpassed $100M in F2025 (3% of product sales). 3. Share gains – SNOW has captured less than 3% penetration of the overall database TAM could expand to $225B by 2028E with the core workload sub-segment climbing to $86B from $46B in 2024E.”
Bottom line, Bracelin gives SNOW an Overweight (I.e., Buy) rating, with a $215 price target that suggests the stock will appreciate by 43.5% in the year ahead. (To watch Bracelin’s track record, click here)
The 37 recent SNOW reviews break down to 32 Buys and 5 Holds, for a Strong Buy consensus rating. The shares are currently priced at $149.9, and their $213.4 average price target implies a one-year upside potential of 42% for the stock. (See SNOW stock forecast)
Autodesk (ADSK)
The second Piper Sandler pick we’ll look at is Autodesk, a tech company that offers users a set of software platforms, tools, and solutions designed to meet the particular needs of engineers, builders, and designers. The company’s tag line is ‘design and make anything,’ and its products are used in virtually any field of design and engineering, from architecture to manufacturing to animation. The Autodesk solutions are available through paid subscriptions, and the company reports that as much as 97% of its revenues are recurring.
Autodesk has been experimenting with AI technology, integrating it into the company’s software platforms. The new suite of tools, Autodesk AI, is billed as both a tool and platform, designed to help customers ‘stay ahead of industry demands and technological shifts.’ The company notes that all of its major customer bases – architects and engineers, construction firms, designers and manufacturers, and entertainment producers – stand to benefit from the use of AI applications.
Along with its recent fiscal 4Q report, the company announced a worldwide business restructuring effort, including a 9% reduction in the workforce – which means layoffs for more than 1,300 employees.
The restructuring is widely seen as a response to a changing tech scene – and a need to redirect resources into technical development, particularly in AI. Autodesk announced those cuts even as it also announced sound quarterly results at the top and bottom lines. The company’s fiscal 4Q25 revenue came to $1.64 billion, up 12% year-over-year and $10 million better than the forecast, while the bottom line earning figure, reported as a non-GAAP EPS of $2.29, was 15 cents per share over the estimates. The company’s free cash flow was up $251 million, reaching $678 million.
Clarke Jeffries covers this stock for Piper Sandler, and he sees net positives in the force reduction and the free cash flow. Jeffries writes of the company and its stock, “The 9% RIF announced last quarter was exactly what we were hoping for when we upgraded ADSK at the beginning of the year, but came with disappointment as spending is still expected to grow in 2025. That said, growing expenses at ~half the rate of adjusted revenue is still good enough for our base case of profitability: mid-teens EBIT growth, mid-30s FCF margin over the medium term –more than appealing on a valuation basis to get involved now.”
These comments are accompanied by an Overweight (i.e., Buy) rating, and a price target of $357 that points toward a 12-month gain for the shares of 42%. (To watch Jeffries’ track record, click here)
ADSK stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating, based on 20 Wall Street reviews that include 17 Buys against 3 Holds. The shares are currently trading for $250.85, and their $350.05 average price target implies a gain of 39.5% in the coming year. (See ADSK stock forecast)
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
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