Key points
- Update, July 30: Claude has climbed from last to third. SoundHound, the pick five of six models shared, closed exactly where it was bought. DeepSeek still leads.
- Six AI models got $10,000 each in pretend money and five picks apiece, every stock AI-related and under $10 billion in market cap. They can swap names every Saturday.
- Five of the six bought SoundHound (SOUN), and the one-line reasons they wrote for it are nearly interchangeable.
- After one trading day DeepSeek led at $10,594.97 and Claude, the only book without a single crowd pick, was last at $10,051.09.
- Rigetti (RGTI) was up 10.37% after day one and all three of the top accounts owned it. It is up 4.73% as of the July 30 close.
- First swap window is Saturday, August 1, priced at Friday's close. Sell a loser and the loss stays in the account.
I wanted to do a test to see which AI chatbot is the most profitable. So last Saturday I gave six AI chatbots the same prompt. You've got $10,000 in pretend money, pick five AI-related stocks, nothing worth more than $10 billion in market cap, and you can change your picks every Saturday. Five of the six bought SoundHound (SOUN). One trading day later the one that didn't was in last place.
DeepSeek's account was up to $10,594.97 and Claude's sat at $10,051.09, so $543.88 separated first from last after a single session. One session doesn't tell you anything. The picks themselves turned out to be the more interesting part.
Everything below is Monday's close. The live scoreboard has all six accounts at current prices.
How it works
The six are ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI. Each one got five slots at $2,000 a slot, bought at Saturday's prices, and any sector counts. There's also a $2 minimum share price and a $5 million average daily volume floor so nothing illiquid sneaks in.
That $10 billion cap is the part that makes this worth running. It takes Nvidia and Broadcom off the board, along with most of what these things reach for first, so the models have to name something they'd otherwise never bring up.
The Saturday swaps price at that Friday's close, and a model can change one name or all five. Scoring runs on total account value rather than on each pick from the day it was bought, so selling a loser locks the loss into the account. Otherwise a model just dumps its mistakes every weekend and turns up with a clean sheet.
They didn't just buy the same stocks, they gave the same reasons
Each model had to write one line defending every pick. DeepSeek called SoundHound voice AI for "automotive, retail, and hospitality sectors." Meta AI, which never saw that answer, said "cars, restaurants, and devices."
Same three buckets, same order. Gemini took 21 words to get to hardware, vehicles and customer service. Grok said enterprise and automotive. ChatGPT was the only one that hedged, calling SOUN a bet with "significant upside if execution improves."
On Friday I counted 16 different tickers filling 30 slots. Four of them, SoundHound, BigBear.ai (BBAI), Rigetti (RGTI) and C3.ai (AI), took half the picks between them.
One day in, the crowd was winning
All six books as they stood after one trading day, ranked by account value. Entry is the July 24 close and the second price column is Monday’s close, July 27. Current standings are in the update at the end of this piece.
DeepSeek, $10,594.97 (+5.95%)
| Stock | Entry | July 27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigetti Computing (RGTI) | $14.17 | $15.64 | +10.37% |
| C3.ai (AI) | $8.15 | $8.82 | +8.22% |
| Palladyne AI (PDYN) | $4.94 | $5.17 | +4.66% |
| SoundHound AI (SOUN) | $6.16 | $6.41 | +4.14% |
| BigBear.ai (BBAI) | $2.77 | $2.83 | +2.35% |
ChatGPT, $10,464.37 (+4.64%)
| Stock | Entry | July 27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigetti Computing (RGTI) | $14.17 | $15.64 | +10.37% |
| Innodata (INOD) | $55.91 | $59.41 | +6.26% |
| SoundHound AI (SOUN) | $6.16 | $6.41 | +4.14% |
| Camtek (CAMT) | $147.85 | $151.46 | +2.44% |
| Alpha and Omega Semiconductor (AOSL) | $30.82 | $30.82 | 0.00% |
Meta AI, $10,454.54 (+4.55%)
| Stock | Entry | July 27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigetti Computing (RGTI) | $14.17 | $15.64 | +10.37% |
| C3.ai (AI) | $8.15 | $8.82 | +8.22% |
| SoundHound AI (SOUN) | $6.16 | $6.41 | +4.14% |
| BigBear.ai (BBAI) | $2.77 | $2.83 | +2.35% |
| Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) | $100.19 | $97.82 | -2.37% |
Gemini, $10,299.36 (+2.99%)
| Stock | Entry | July 27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| C3.ai (AI) | $8.15 | $8.82 | +8.22% |
| Ouster (OUST) | $34.04 | $35.14 | +3.25% |
| SoundHound AI (SOUN) | $6.16 | $6.41 | +4.14% |
| BigBear.ai (BBAI) | $2.77 | $2.83 | +2.35% |
| Applied Digital (APLD) | $27.19 | $26.38 | -3.00% |
Grok, $10,273.53 (+2.74%)
| Stock | Entry | July 27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Innodata (INOD) | $55.91 | $59.41 | +6.26% |
| SoundHound AI (SOUN) | $6.16 | $6.41 | +4.14% |
| BigBear.ai (BBAI) | $2.77 | $2.83 | +2.35% |
| Aehr Test Systems (AEHR) | $76.30 | $77.48 | +1.55% |
| Serve Robotics (SERV) | $4.81 | $4.78 | -0.62% |
Claude, $10,051.09 (+0.51%)
| Stock | Entry | July 27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Innodata (INOD) | $55.91 | $59.41 | +6.26% |
| SkyWater Technology (SKYT) | $30.65 | $31.59 | +3.07% |
| Ambarella (AMBA) | $68.07 | $68.23 | +0.24% |
| Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) | $100.19 | $97.82 | -2.37% |
| Argan (AGX) | $568.93 | $542.52 | -4.64% |
Every position started at $2,000, so the account totals track the percentages rather than the share prices.
Rigetti (RGTI) did most of the damage, up 10.37% since Friday and sitting in all three of the accounts on top. C3.ai (AI) added 8.22% and gave DeepSeek and Meta AI a second engine. Claude's drag is Argan (AGX), down 4.64%, and it owns none of the four names everybody else is riding.
Which is about what I expected from week one. Everyone bought momentum, momentum went up, and the model that went shopping for profitable companies nobody talks about got left at the gate. Ask me again in October.
What I'm watching Saturday
The books reprice at Friday's close and each model gets one chance to change its mind. Sell something and the loss stays in the account, which is the whole reason scoring runs on the total rather than on each pick from the day it was bought. Nobody gets a quiet do-over.
Two things I want to see. Whether DeepSeek and Meta AI, who share four of their five names, drift apart or stay stapled together. And whether Claude caves and buys SoundHound like everybody else.
There's a slower version of this running too. Five models picked tech stocks to hold for six months and four of them bought Nvidia, which is the same instinct with a bigger market cap. I've also got Claude trading $100 of real money on Robinhood, and that one has been rougher.
Next scoreboard lands after Saturday's swaps. Until then the tracker has every position and entry price, updating as the market moves.
Disclaimer: This contest is for entertainment and information only and is not investment advice. The picks are AI chatbot outputs rather than analyst research and nobody should buy or sell anything because a chatbot said so. I may hold positions in some of the stocks mentioned.
Update, Thursday July 30
Three sessions on, the crowd trade this piece was about has gone nowhere, and the one account that owned none of it has climbed from last to third.
| Model | Account value | Return |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | $10,477.47 | +4.77% |
| Gemini | $10,427.18 | +4.27% |
| Claude | $10,290.35 | +2.90% |
| Grok | $10,215.82 | +2.16% |
| Meta AI | $10,177.26 | +1.77% |
| ChatGPT | $10,120.15 | +1.20% |
SoundHound, the name five of the six models bought and wrote nearly interchangeable reasons for, closed at $6.155. That is the price they paid for it, to the tenth of a cent, three sessions later. Every dollar that moved this leaderboard came from somewhere else.
Most of it came from C3.ai, up 11.29% since entry and held by three books, DeepSeek, Gemini and Meta AI. Rigetti was up 10.37% when this piece ran on Monday and has since given back more than half of it, sitting at 4.73%.
Claude's move up the table came from the three names nobody else bought. Ambarella is up 9.02%, SkyWater 5.94% and Argan 2.13%, and Innodata, which it shares with Grok and ChatGPT, is up 7.48%. It is doing that while carrying the worst position in the contest. Applied Optoelectronics is down 10.05%, and Meta AI owns it too.
The gap between first and last has closed from $543.88 after one session to $357.33. The first swap window is still Saturday, August 1, priced at Friday's close.
Prices are Thursday’s closing marks, July 30, 2026.
