Key points
- Five AIs each got a pretend $10,000 and picked 5 tech stocks to hold for six months. Four of the five picked Nvidia (NVDA).
- Claude skipped NVDA entirely and went with TSM, GOOGL, AMD, CRWV and DDOG.
- Baselines are the final July 17, 2026 after-hours prices. Final scoring January 15, 2027. Scoreboard monthly.
I ran an experiment this weekend. I gave five AI chatbots the same prompt. You have $10,000 of pretend money; pick exactly five US-listed tech stocks and hold them for six months. Any corner of tech counts. No trades after you answer, and no do-overs. Then I wrote down every pick with its price so we can keep score in public.
The contestants: ChatGPT from OpenAI. Gemini from Google. Grok from xAI. Meta AI from Meta. And Claude from Anthropic. Each one answered on Sunday, July 19, without seeing anyone else's list. The baseline for every stock is its final after-hours trade from Friday, July 17, since a few of these names moved after the bell. The contest ends at the close of January 15, 2027, and once a month, I'll post a scoreboard.
The rules
Each AI splits its $10,000 evenly at $2,000 per stock. The score is the average return of the five picks off the July 17 baseline. Dividends don't count. If somebody's pick gets bought out, the position freezes at the deal price. That's the whole rulebook.
A few notes on how I collected the answers. I asked all of them myself from my own sessions. Grok ran a web search before answering, and both Grok and Gemini cited finance sites in their replies. And I personally use Claude the most. It got the same prompt as everyone else, and its picks were locked before this article existed. No special treatment on the scoreboard.
The consensus: four of the five own Nvidia
Out of 25 total picks, the group only came up with 14 different stocks. Nvidia (NVDA) went four for five. Microsoft (MSFT), Broadcom (AVGO), and AMD (AMD) each showed up three times. Meta Platforms (META) and Micron (MU) each got two votes.
The one holdout on Nvidia was Claude, whose only overlap with anyone else is AMD.
ChatGPT plays it safe
| Ticker | Company | Baseline price |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | Nvidia | $202.55 |
| MSFT | Microsoft | $394.01 |
| AVGO | Broadcom | $370.16 |
| AMD | Advanced Micro Devices | $492.10 |
| CRWD | CrowdStrike | $202.66 |
Four giant AI hardware and cloud names plus CrowdStrike (CRWD) for the security angle. ChatGPT said AI infrastructure spending "remains one of the strongest themes in technology" and made a point of saying its portfolio "intentionally avoids concentrated bets on unprofitable AI names." Fair enough. You could have guessed most of this list before I even asked.
Gemini bets on the buildout
| Ticker | Company | Baseline price |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | Nvidia | $202.55 |
| VRT | Vertiv | $288.50 |
| MU | Micron | $844.00 |
| META | Meta Platforms | $640.25 |
| CRM | Salesforce | $170.83 |
Gemini opened with some trash talk: "As an AI myself, I like to think I have a bit of a home-field advantage." Noted. The picks go after the physical side of the buildout. Vertiv makes the cooling and power gear, and Micron sells the memory that every AI cluster keeps demanding. Salesforce (CRM) is the odd one in the group, and Gemini called it "a classic value-rebound play" after the beating the stock took earlier this year.
My favorite detail is the stock Gemini didn't pick. Google's own AI looked at Alphabet and passed.
Grok goes all-in on chips
| Ticker | Company | Baseline price |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | Nvidia | $202.55 |
| MU | Micron | $844.00 |
| AVGO | Broadcom | $370.16 |
| MSFT | Microsoft | $394.01 |
| AMD | Advanced Micro Devices | $492.10 |
Grok ran a web search and came back with four semiconductor names and Microsoft. That is the heaviest chip concentration in the contest. It called Micron a "high-conviction play on AI infrastructure expansion" and summed up its own basket as one that "emphasizes AI infrastructure (chips/memory) while adding software/cloud stability." The concentration cuts both ways. A semiconductor sell-off would leave this list nowhere to hide.
Meta AI buys its own stock
| Ticker | Company | Baseline price |
|---|---|---|
| NVDA | Nvidia | $202.55 |
| AVGO | Broadcom | $370.16 |
| MSFT | Microsoft | $394.01 |
| META | Meta Platforms | $640.25 |
| ANET | Arista Networks | $168.25 |
Yes, really. Meta's chatbot put $2,000 of its pretend money on Meta stock and called its parent company the "cheapest of the Mag 7 on forward earnings with the best buyback." I laughed at that one until I remembered Gemini bought META too. Maybe it has a point. Its one original pick is Arista Networks (ANET), the company selling the networking gear inside AI data centers. The rest is straight consensus.
Claude went the other way
| Ticker | Company | Baseline price |
|---|---|---|
| TSM | Taiwan Semiconductor | $397.75 |
| GOOGL | Alphabet | $346.45 |
| AMD | Advanced Micro Devices | $492.10 |
| CRWV | CoreWeave | $73.25 |
| DDOG | Datadog | $254.81 |
Claude figured the other four would all own Nvidia. So it skipped the crowd and built the anti-consensus portfolio. Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) manufactures the chips for Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom, so it collects a toll no matter whose GPU wins. Alphabet (GOOGL) is one of the cheapest AI mega caps, and it runs its own silicon. AMD (AMD) is the bet that hyperscalers keep paying for a second source, and ChatGPT and Grok clearly agree since they own it too. CoreWeave (CRWV) is the lottery ticket, and we broke down that whole business model in our neocloud explainer. Datadog (DDOG) gets paid a little more every time somebody ships more software.
To me, this is the most interesting list of the five, even if it finishes last.
The subplot I'm watching
Gemini and Grok both own Micron at $844.00, while Michael Burry is short the stock from $1,052. We covered that short when the filing dropped. So for the next six months, it's two AIs against the investor The Big Short made famous, and I can't tell you who wins that one.
What happens next
The picks are locked and nothing happens for a month. First scoreboard lands mid-August. We already grade a famous human's calls every day on the Inverse Cramer tracker, and our hedge fund tracker follows what the pros actually buy. Now the AIs get the same treatment. I have a hunch about who takes it, but I'm keeping that to myself until the first update.
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. Baseline prices are each stock's final extended-hours trade of July 17, 2026. I may hold positions in some of the stocks mentioned.
