SoundHound AI, Inc.

Key Points
SoundHound shares have dropped more than 50% from their highs.
The company is working to combine its AI voice technology with AI agents.
If the company can become a leader in the agentic AI space, it could have huge upside.
SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) exploded onto investors' radars when Nvidia disclosed a stake last year. The stock took off as enthusiasm soared, but has cooled off since. Shares are now down more than 50% from their highs.
The question is whether that drop is a red flag or a buying opportunity.
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Looking to combine voice and agentic AI
SoundHound started out as an artificial intelligence (AI) voice company whose platform goes beyond traditional speech recognition. Its "speech-to-meaning" and "deep meaning understanding" technology are designed to not just convert words into text, but to interpret what someone actually wants in real time before they are even finished speaking.
SoundHound has established a strong foothold in the automobile and restaurant industries. Major automakers, such as Hyundai and Stellantis, use its platform to power voice assistants in their vehicles, while fast-food chains are embedding its technology into drive-thrus, phone orders, and kiosks. The company is seeing strong traction in these industries, but that's part of the story.
The other part is what came with the company's $80 million acquisition of Amelia in 2024. Amelia specialized in virtual agents for industries like healthcare, insurance, and financial services. These are consumer-facing industries where compliance, transactional complexity, and industry-specific jargon make voice integration more difficult.
SoundHound bought Amelia not only to gain customers in these verticals, but to also gain access to its technology. In essence, it allowed the company to combine its advanced speech recognition technology with Amelia's conversational intelligence.
Amelia also gave SoundHound an important missing piece to go beyond voice and enter the world of agentic AI. SoundHound isn't looking to be just an AI voice company anymore, it's positioning itself as an autonomous voice agent technology company.
Its launch of its Amelia 7.0 platform is a big step forward in this vision. The platform is designed to act like a digital employee that can understand intent, reason, interact with humans naturally, and then autonomously complete tasks. While chatbots may struggle with interruptions or someone rephrasing something, Amelia 7.0's voice first technology helps it excels in these areas.
Amelia can also be integrated with enterprise systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, help desks, banking systems, and medical and insurance platforms. It can also carry out very industry specific tasks.
For example, within healthcare, it can help a patient who calls a medical practice find the right specialist, schedule an appointment, get prior authorization, and take their insurance information. Meanwhile, for financial services, it would be able to handle tasks such as balance transfers, transaction disputes, or even make complex stock and options trades.
That type of voice AI platform can be real cost saver for companies, so it has a huge opportunity in front of it. However, it also has real work to do.
All about execution
While SoundHound just posted 151% revenue growth in Q1, it's still not profitable and its gross margin has come under pressure. The Amelia deal brought over some lower-margin legacy contracts, and amortization costs from the acquisition are also weighing on reported results. Last quarter, generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) gross margin dropped to 36.5%, although adjusted gross margin was higher at 50.8%.
SoundHound is aiming to get gross margin back above 70% over time. It last hit that level in the fourth quarter of 2023, before the Amelia deal closed. Management has been clear that improving its margin profile is a key focus, and as low-margin contracts expire and get renegotiated, those numbers should improve.
The path from here is all about execution. SoundHound has an intriguing technology and a differentiated product. However, it faces competition from bigger companies that have more resources and large installed user bases.
The pullback in the stock has more to do with sentiment and valuation than it does with its growth outlook. The stock has never been cheap, and it likely won't be anytime soon. But that's the case with most companies with huge future opportunities.
If SoundHound succeeds in becoming a premier agentic AI company, the drop in share price will look like a gift. However, if it stumbles on execution or gets outflanked by a bigger player, it won't matter how strong its tech is.
The simple fact also is that the best technology doesn't always win. Sony is a company that knows this very well. Its superior Betamax technology lost to VHS in the early days of VCRs. However, the company learned its lesson when DVDs came around, with its Blu-ray technology being the winner over HD DVD, despite arguably being the lesser technology. Time will tell who comes out on top with AI agents.
Is SoundHound stock a buy?
SoundHound is at the intersection of voice AI and AI agents, which has the potential to be an absolutely huge market. Meanwhile, with a market cap of less than $5 billion, the stock has a lot of runway if it can become one of the major players in this market.
Overall, an investment in SoundHound stock is a high-upside bet on a potentially big trend. For long-term investors who can handle volatility, buying this dip could be a great opportunity. Just remember, though, this is still a high risk-reward stock.
Should you invest $1,000 in SoundHound AI right now?
Before you buy stock in SoundHound AI, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and SoundHound AI wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $652,133!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,056,790!*
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*Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025
Geoffrey Seiler has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Stellantis. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

This Magnificent Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock Is Down 50%. Buy the Dip, or Run for the Hills?

Key Points
The Global X Robotics and Artificial Intelligence ETF offers a unique approach to AI investing with minimal overlap to the S&P 500.
Unlike market-cap weighted AI funds dominated by tech giants, this ETF includes smaller AI specialists like UiPath and SoundHound AI.
If you think the S&P 500's AI leaders are overvalued, the Global X AI ETF offers a contrarian way to play the AI theme.
Most of the time, I prefer broad market-tracking index funds like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO). This exchange-traded fund (ETF) mirrors the component stocks of the classic S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) market index. This way, it offers an unmatched combination of robust long-term returns and broad diversification.
But what if you want a quick shot of exposure to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom -- without spending too much time and effort on hand-picking individual stocks? There are several ETFs available for that role, but one stands out as a promising investment right now.
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Meet the Global X AI fund
Let me introduce you to the Global X Robotics and Artificial Intelligence ETF (NASDAQ: BOTZ). For your convenience, I'll call it Global X AI from now on.
Many AI-themed ETFs turn out to be fairly similar to the basic S&P 500. That's a natural result from the massive market capitalization of the leading AI titans. I would slap the AI label on nine of the 10 largest market caps in the S&P 500 today. When funds are weighted by market cap alone, these giants easily bubble up to the top and dictate the performance of that index (and any index funds that track it).
But the Global X AI marches to a different drum.
A refreshingly different AI portfolio
The overlap between this fund and the S&P 500 is very limited. Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is the only one of Global X AI's top ten names that also makes an appearance among the 10 heaviest weights in the market index.
Nvidia gets a fund-leading 11.5% weight in the Global X AI portfolio, compared to 7.4% among the S&P 500 members. But the rest of the top-ten list is refreshingly different. The same is true for the remainder of Global X AI's 98 total components.
Only two of the top 20 Global X AI stocks are S&P 500 members. That would be Nvidia and robotic surgery expert Intuitive Surgical. The same list includes 9 stocks from the Japanese, Swedish, and South Korean stock exchanges. That's a healthy serving of geographical diversity. You'll also find a 2.4% allotment of process automation specialist UiPath, and a 1.7% weight for the exciting voice command company SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN).
This is not your average batch of familiar AI names, but a hand-curated list of "companies that potentially stand to benefit from increased adoption and utilization of robotics and AI."
Why this AI fund looks tasty right now
So the Global X AI fund brings a new dimension to the AI investor. It relies on a dramatically different list of AI stocks than most of its peers. But why am I recommending this particular ETF at this specific moment?
You see, this fund has a history of really soaring when the AI market is hot. For example, it tripled the returns of the S&P 500 in the first few months of the current AI boom, going back to the ChatGPT launch in November 2022:
At the same time, it has let out steam by lagging behind the broader market in the last two years. In total, the S&P 500 has caught up to Global X AI since ChatGPT made a splash. If Global X AI was a high-flying market darling two years ago, it has dropped back to Earth in recent months.
If you feel like the S&P 500 might be overvalued these days, with too much market value based on risky gains from a handful of early AI leaders, this could be your moment to bet on a different group.
I can't guarantee that this fund will outperform the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (or any other fund) in the long run, but you know what they say about buying low and selling high. That's the kind of opportunity I see in the Global X AI ETF today.
Should you invest $1,000 in Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF right now?
Before you buy stock in Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $679,653!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,046,308!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 179% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.
*Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025
Anders Bylund has positions in Intuitive Surgical, Nvidia, SoundHound AI, and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intuitive Surgical, Nvidia, UiPath, and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

1 Top Artificial Intelligence ETF to Buy Right Now

Key Points
SoundHound AI stock saw a massive rally at the end of 2024, but its share price pulled back in the first half of 2025.
There were multiple catalysts that contributed to the conversational AI specialist's valuation decline.
SoundHound AI's share price has actually benefited from a big rally over the last few months.
SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) stock saw a dramatic valuation pullback across the first half of this year's trading. The company's share price fell 45.9% January through June despite a gain of 5.5% for the S&P 500 index across the stretch.
SoundHound's valuation pullback in the first half of 2025 was partially a reaction to the strong gains that the stock saw in 2024. Some macroeconomic and business-specific catalysts also caused investors to sell shares, but the stock has also been on a winning streak in recent trading.
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Why SoundHound AI stock sank in 2025's first half
SoundHound AI stock got off to a rough start this year. The conversational artificial intelligence (AI) specialist saw a steep valuation decline after Chinese AI firm DeepSeek rolled out its R1 model. SoundHound AI stock was also hit with pullbacks in conjunction with this year's CES expo.
Investors had been hoping that the company would announce some groundbreaking new products or partnerships at CES, but the trade show wound up producing less favorable indicators. Nvidia made announcements about its intentions to expand in the agentic AI space that SoundHound AI is looking at as a key growth market.
SoundHound AI stock then got hit with another big pullback in conjunction with Nvidia-related news. In February, the AI hardware leader submitted its investment holdings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the routine disclosure revealed that Nvidia had sold its stake in SoundHound AI. Nvidia's investment in the company had played a significant role in powering valuation gains for the company, and news of the divestment prompted a substantial sell-off for SoundHound AI.
The stock did see a spike in May after the company published its first-quarter results. Sales increased 151% year over year to reach $29.1 million, and the business posted a non-GAAP (adjusted) loss of $0.06 per share in the period. Revenue in the quarter came in significantly ahead of the market's target, and the stock moved higher after the earnings report.
What's next for SoundHound AI?
SoundHound AI stock has gained ground in July's trading as investors have ramped up bets on growth stocks. The company's share price is up roughly 8% in the month so far as I write this.
SoundHound AI is guiding for sales this year to come in between $157 million and $177 million. If the company were to hit the midpoint of its sales guidance target, that would mean delivering annual sales growth of roughly 97% over the $84.7 million in revenue it posted last year. Hitting that midpoint would also mean a substantial acceleration over the annual sales growth of 85% the business posted last year.
Valued at roughly 29 times this year's expected sales, SoundHound AI has a heavily growth-dependent valuation, but the sales ramp for its services has been impressive so far.
Should you invest $1,000 in SoundHound AI right now?
Before you buy stock in SoundHound AI, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and SoundHound AI wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $679,653!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,046,308!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 179% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.
*Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025
Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Why SoundHound AI Stock Plummeted 46% in the First Half of 2025 but Has Been Bouncing Back

SoundHound AI, Inc. SOUN is carving a niche with its voice-enabled agentic artificial intelligence (“AI”) platform and recent developments indicates that healthcare is becoming a notable area of adoption. In the first quarter of 2025, SoundHound reported that three well-regarded healthcare organizations renewed and expanded their engagements with it. This included a major medical billing firm, a provider of at-home diagnostic services and a healthcare system operating a dozen hospitals in the Midwest. These renewals reflect not only confidence in SoundHound’s technology but also growing traction within the healthcare vertical.
The company’s agentic AI platform, Amelia 7.0, launched during the quarter, offers a fleet of AI agents capable of executing tasks autonomously, such as scheduling, billing and information retrieval, without human intervention. These agents are integrated with SoundHound’s proprietary voice AI, allowing for human-like interaction. The company cited examples where patients could reorder prescriptions, pay bills and make new appointments through seamless voice interactions. This end-to-end functionality is designed to support real-world healthcare operations and drive higher efficiency.
The company highlighted healthcare as one of the sectors showing consistent enterprise momentum. As of the first quarter, SoundHound’s enterprise segment experienced strong interaction growth, with it handling a fivefold increase in ticket volume quarter over quarter and reducing resolution time significantly due to automation.
With these developments, SoundHound is increasingly positioned to scale its presence in healthcare as organizations look to modernize engagement and streamline workflows using voice AI.
Competition in the Voice-Powered AI Solutions Market
As SoundHound gains traction in the voice-AI market, competition is intensifying from larger players like Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, who are also accelerating efforts in agentic artificial intelligence.
Microsoft, with its Azure OpenAI integrations and Nuance Communications unit, offers substantial restrictions in the market that SoundHound AI operates in. Nuance’s deep roots in healthcare voice automation and conversational AI give Microsoft a strong enterprise footprint, with Azure offering tools for custom enterprise workflows.
Furthermore, Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa Auto seems to be another market competitor for SOUN. Amazon’s Alexa Auto leverages its consumer ecosystem to deliver in-car voice functionality. The strength lies in smart home integration and brand familiarity, but OEMs increasingly seek white-labeled, customizable alternatives, an area where SoundHound differentiates.
SOUN’s Price Performance & Valuation Trend
Shares of SoundHound have gained 44.5% in the past three months compared with the industry’s growth of 9.5%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
SOUN stock is currently trading at a premium compared with the industry peers, with a forward 12-month price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 24.05X, as evidenced by the chart below.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
SoundHound currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Is SoundHound Gaining Ground in Healthcare AI Adoption?

C3.ai, Inc. AI is sharpening its focus on the emerging Agentic AI segment, a business line that is quickly evolving into a meaningful contributor to revenue and long-term growth. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, the company reported that its Agentic AI deployments are leading to an annualized run rate of $60 million, with applications spanning mission-critical environments in defense, manufacturing, government and energy.
C3.ai’s early patent on agentic AI, secured in late 2022, sets it apart in an increasingly crowded AI landscape. The company is delivering production-grade AI agents purpose-built for autonomous decision-making. These agents are operational across over 100 use cases, including predictive maintenance for the U.S. Air Force’s PANDA platform and global fuel monitoring for the Defense Logistics Agency’s Pluto system.
Crucially, the company is leveraging its trusted partner ecosystem to scale the reach of its Agentic AI solutions. A newly formed strategic alliance with PwC allows C3.ai to combine its agentic capabilities with PwC’s deep advisory expertise, targeting verticals such as financial services, manufacturing and utilities. The initiative complements its alliances with Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud and McKinsey QuantumBlack, contributing to rapid adoption. The company has made a disciplined push to ensure its partners are fully enabled, with demo tools, training programs and co-sell strategies in place to drive execution globally.
C3.ai believes its Agentic AI business is materially undervalued. Management stated that if the unit were carved out as a standalone, it could command a valuation multiple above the company’s entire current market cap, backed by IP strength, customer traction and real-world impact. With enterprise use cases accelerating and customer references spanning Shell, Dow, Cargill and the U.S. Navy, the agentic AI portfolio is well-positioned to scale and drive growth in the coming periods.
How It Stacks Up to Competitors
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. CDNS is pursuing agentic AI from a product development lens, embedding intelligent automation across the semiconductor design stack. Through its Cerebrus and Conformal AI ECO flows, the company enables AI-driven enhancements in areas like logic synthesis and low-power optimization. In the first quarter of 2025, Cadence reported that over 50% of all customer chip designs now integrate AI-enabled workflows, with partnerships expanding across foundries and hyperscalers. Cadence is collaborating with NVIDIA Corporation NVDA to co-develop a full-stack agentic AI system for science and engineering, built on the Llama Nemotron Reasoning Model. While promising, Cadence’s agentic AI remains tightly coupled to EDA toolchains, with a narrower application scope compared to C3.ai’s enterprise-grade agents.
SoundHound AI, Inc. SOUN is approaching the agentic AI opportunity through conversational AI and customer-facing voice agents. In the first quarter of 2025, the company launched Amelia 7.0, an enterprise-ready agentic platform capable of autonomous task execution across healthcare, hospitality and financial services. Its Agentic Plus framework enables fleets of voice-powered agents to transact, reason and respond without human intervention. SoundHound has already deployed the technology across 13,000 restaurant locations and secured OEM pilots for in-vehicle voice commerce. While SoundHound’s edge lies in multimodal, multilingual voice AI integration, its agentic use cases remain consumer-centric and are mostly confined to front-end service automation.
AI’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
Shares of C3.ai have gained 39.7% in the past three months compared with the industry’s growth of 9.5%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, AI trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 7.43X, significantly below the industry’s average of 18.24X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AI’s fiscal 2026 and 2027 earnings per share (EPS) implies a year-over-year uptick of 9.8% and 56.9%, respectively. The EPS estimates for fiscal 2026 and 2027 have increased in the past 30 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
AI stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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C3.ai's Agentic AI Push Scales Up: Can it Fuel a New Growth Cycle?

Key Points
There is a massive market opportunity in conversational intelligence.
SoundHound AI is winning customers and growing revenue rapidly.
Investors could make tremendous returns over the next few years.
If you haven't used them yet, you probably will soon. They communicate with you conversationally, take orders, solve customer service issues, and respond to detailed queries. But they aren't human.
I'm talking about AI-powered voice-recognition systems that are popping up across multiple industries, such as restaurants (drive-thru, in-person, and phone ordering), automotive, call centers, smart devices, and others. Statista pegs the addressable market as $8.6 billion this year and nearly doubling by 2030 to $15.9 billion.
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The adoption is likely to be rapid as the technology is perfected. There is simply too much cost savings for companies not to use it. This is the first reason SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) could be ready for a massive bull run: tremendous market opportunity.
Major customer wins
SoundHound operates mainly on a recurring revenue model. Customers pay royalties based on usage, per device, or through subscription services, where the payment is made monthly, based on usage or the number of interactions. This is a terrific model. Recurring revenue makes sales and cash flow more predictable and increases the lifetime value of each customer. That is, once SoundHound wins a customer, it will continue to receive revenue until the customer cancels the contract.
And SoundHound is winning customers hand over fist. Plus, it is expanding relationships with current customers who tried the technology and want to expand it to thousands more locations. For instance, SoundHound reported expansions with Firehouse Subs, Five Guys, White Castle, and other food brands, as well as healthcare, retail, and other customers in its last earnings release. Its customer list is impressive and growing, as shown below.
Gaining customers is the company's No. 1 job right now to feed its recurring revenue model -- and so its recent success is the second reason the stock could catch fire soon.
Financial growth and valuation
The third reason is financial. The stock price is down while revenue is skyrocketing. The stock got ahead of the company's results in 2024. It was up over 1,000% during the year at one point. The price-to-sales ratio hit 110. Once the momentum turned in 2025, the stock price fell nearly 70% and is still more than 50% off its 2024 high. But fortunes are turning.
SoundHound reported a massive 151% year-over-year increase in sales in the first quarter of 2025, hitting $29 million. It also finished with $246 million in cash and no long-term debt. The company isn't profitable yet, but this isn't unusual for a fast-growing tech upstart focusing on investing in its technology and building its customer base.
The result of the stock price crash and revenue ramp is a more attractive valuation. The price-to-sales ratio is now 42, which is still expensive; however, look what happens to it on a forward basis:
The stock market is forward-looking investors buying companies based on what they expect in the future. SoundHound stock's price-to-sales ratio has fallen quickly to 29, based on revenue estimates for 2025, and is expected to fall further to 22 based on next year's sales. This also assumes that SoundHound will hit the low end of its revenue guidance in 2025; the company is predicting $157 million to $177 million. This would push the forward price-to-sales ratio down even further.
Suffice it to say, revenue is soaring, and the valuation is getting more and more attractive, which could lead to massive gains for investors over the next few years.
Should you invest $1,000 in SoundHound AI right now?
Before you buy stock in SoundHound AI, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and SoundHound AI wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $680,559!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,005,670!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,053% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.
*Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025
Bradley Guichard has the following options: long January 2027 $20 calls on SoundHound AI. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

3 Reasons SoundHound AI Stock Could Explode Higher

An artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is underway, with two companies, CoreWeave, Inc. CRWV and SoundHound AI, Inc. SOUN, well-positioned to ride this technological wave. While CoreWeave’s shares have soared more than 220% this year, SoundHound AI’s shares surged above 110% in the past year.
Therefore, let us take a look at which of these two companies might emerge as the next significant player in AI, and whether you should own the stock now.
Reasons to Be Bullish on CoreWeave
CoreWeave outperformed the magnificent seven stocks this year, largely due to its close link to NVIDIA Corporation NVDA. CoreWeave’s main focus is to provide customers with access to its extensive collection of NVIDIA chips, spread across more than 30 data centers. The demand for NVIDIA’s cutting-edge Blackwell chips has exceeded expectations, making investors hopeful about CoreWeave’s prospects.
Moreover, NVIDIA’s 7% stake in CoreWeave indicates that this emerging company is positioned to be a prominent player in the upcoming AI development. CoreWeave faces competition from Microsoft Corporation’s MSFT Azure and Amazon.com, Inc.’s AMZN Amazon Web Services, as they also supply NVIDIA’s products. However, CoreWeave declared that it was the first company to offer NVIDIA’s newest chip, Blackwell Ultra, for commercial applications. This has helped position CoreWeave as the top destination for customers seeking quick access to NVIDIA’s latest innovations.
Despite uncertainties this year, CoreWeave’s revenues grew more than 400% in the first quarter, as the company successfully met demand, faced competition, and expanded thanks to significant investments. Its annual revenues soared from $16 million in 2022 to $1.9 billion in 2024. It is expected that revenues will see a CAGR of 105% to $16.6 billion from 2024 to 2027.
Most of CoreWeave’s expansion relied on large debt offerings. However, insiders bought more shares than they sold in the past year, demonstrating strong confidence that the company can efficiently scale its operations and reduce losses moving forward.
Reasons to Be Bullish on SoundHound AI
Rising customer demand for quick service, along with labor shortages, is prompting restaurants to adopt voice automation. This trend benefits SoundHound AI, which has gained clients like Casey’s General Stores, Inc. CASY and Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. CMG.
Additionally, the popularity of SoundHound AI’s voice solutions is growing due to their effectiveness and automation advantages. According to MarketsandMarkets, the conversational AI market is expected to grow from $17.05 billion in 2025 to $49.80 billion by 2031, creating opportunities for SoundHound AI to improve customer acquisition.
The $1.2 billion booking backlog for 2024 signals strong long-term revenue growth. Moreover, the total addressable market (TAM) of $140 billion suggests significant potential for further expansion. SoundHound AI also expects revenues this year to range from $157 million to $177 million. This is way more than 2024’s $84.7 million revenues (read more: SoundHound AI Vs. BigBear.ai: Which Stock Is the Better Buy?).
CoreWeave Vs. SoundHound AI: Which Stock Is the Better Buy?
CoreWeave, despite being favored in AI infrastructure and backed by NVIDIA, carries significant debt, totaling $8.7 billion as of March 31. Interest payments on this debt accounted for 27% of its first-quarter revenues.
Additionally, CoreWeave relies heavily on Microsoft as its main customer, making its growth vulnerable to any shift in Microsoft’s business strategy. Hence, CoreWeave’s debt load and uncertain business model make investing in the stock risky right now, and cautious investors should avoid the stock.
On the other hand, the broad acceptance of SoundHound’s voice AI boosted its stock value, encouraging current investors to remain invested due to revenue growth potential. However, it is prudent for new investors to wait until the company becomes profitable before investing in SoundHound AI stock. This is because SoundHound AI experienced losses amounting to $188 million in the past year (read more: Can SoundHound AI Stock Be the Next NVIDIA, and Is It a Buy?).
For now, SoundHound AI stock has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), whereas CoreWeave has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
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Which AI Stock, CoreWeave or SoundHound, Is the Better Buy?

Key Points
SoundHound AI stock saw a pullback Thursday, but there wasn't any major news driving the move.
The conversational AI specialist's stock has been highly volatile over the last year.
SoundHound AI's highly growth-dependent valuation makes it a risky play, but it could still deliver wins over the long term.
SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) stock saw a pullback in Thursday's trading. The company's share price fell 4.7% in the session and had been down as much as 8.1% earlier in trading.
While there doesn't appear to have been any major business-specific news behind the pullback, investors may have moved to take profits after a pop for the company's share price earlier in the week. Despite today's pullback, the stock is still up roughly 9% over the last week of trading. Even more striking, the company's share price is up roughly 39% over the last three months.
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Is SoundHound AI stock a good buy right now?
SoundHound AI has been highly volatile over the last year of trading. While the company's share price is still up roughly 197% across the stretch, it's also still down approximatley 49% from its peak in the period.
Even as the company's sales base has ramped up rapidly, sales growth has continued to accelerate. Revenue increased 151% year over year in the first quarter of the company's current fiscal year, which ended March 31. The company still only posted $29.1 million in sales in the period, but sales growth in the quarter marked a dramatic improvement over the 73% annual growth it posted in the prior-year period.
SoundHound is an early mover in the voice-based agentic artificial intelligence (AI) space, and it has huge expansion potential over the long term -- but its valuation profile still comes with a risk. The company now has a market capitalization of roughly $4.9 billion and is valued at approximately 31 times this year's expected sales.
For investors with a very high risk tolerance, SoundHound AI could still be a worthwhile investment. The company has been posting very impressive sales momentum, but its valuation already prices in a lot of strong growth in the future. If you're looking to build a position in SoundHound AI stock, using a dollar-cost-averaging strategy for your purchases may be better than buying in all at once at today's prices.
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Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

SoundHound AI Stock Sank Today -- Is the Artificial Intelligence Company a Buy?

With the progress of artificial intelligence (AI), NVIDIA Corporation NVDA has experienced rapid business growth. However, SoundHound AI, Inc. SOUN, a provider of voice AI platforms, saw its shares outpace NVIDIA's last year. So, is it now the next major player in the AI industry, and worth investing in? Let’s find out –
NVIDIA Hit $4T Market Cap, Poised for Growth
NVIDIA’s market cap reached the coveted $4 trillion mark on Wednesday, surpassing fellow publicly traded companies, such as Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Apple Inc. AAPL. NVIDIA’s shares closed Wednesday’s trading session up 1.8%, with its market cap slightly below the $4 trillion milestone.
It’s been a volatile year for NVIDIA stock. The company had to face DeepSeek’s cost-effective large language model threat, but it overcame the challenge, and its shares have increased 24% over the past year. The gains came as NVIDIA continued to benefit from the generative AI hype since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Developers are opting for NVIDIA’s CUDA software platform, designed to both train and run AI programs, giving the company a strategic advantage over rivals such as Intel Corporation INTC and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD.
NVIDIA overcame President Trump’s tariffs and export curbs on the sale of its chips to China. NVIDIA delivered its cutting-edge Blackwell chips to customers, boosting sales by 69% year over year to $44.1 billion in the fiscal first quarter.
Reasons for SoundHound AI’s Rising Shares
SoundHound AI has made significant strides in AI, and its share price surged 211.6% in the past year, outpacing NVIDIA. Demand for SoundHound AI’s voice solutions is increasing due to efficiency, automation, and rising customer demand for quick service.
Restaurants facing labor shortages are adopting these solutions, with clients including Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. CMG and Casey’s General Stores, Inc. CASY. Eased trade tensions could further reduce overseas costs, enhancing profitability.
SoundHound AI’s first-quarter revenues came in at $29.1 million, up 151% year over year. The company projects 2025 revenues of $157-$177 million, up from $84.7 million last year. A $140 billion total addressable market (TAM) and 1.2 billion booking backlog further suggest promising long-term growth (read more: SoundHound AI Vs. BigBear.ai: Which Stock Is the Better Buy?).
Is Investing in SOUN Stock a Wise Move Now? Is It the Next NVIDIA?
The widespread adoption of SoundHound’s voice AI boosted the stock, and stakeholders should remain invested due to strong revenue growth prospects. However, it’s prudent for new entrants to wait for the company to be profitable before placing a bet on SoundHound AI stock.
SoundHound AI incurred $188 million in losses in the past year. In contrast, NVIDIA’s net profit margin of 51.7% surpassed the Semiconductor - General industry’s 49.5%, indicating room for further growth.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Additionally, SoundHound AI lacks the competitive advantage that NVIDIA possesses, which holds over 80% of the graphics processing units (GPUs) market and helps it endure market fluctuations. Therefore, it’s too soon to say that SoundHound AI will be the next NVIDIA.
For now, NVIDIA and SoundHound AI both have a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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Can SoundHound AI Stock Be the Next NVIDIA, and Is It a Buy?

SoundHound AI, Inc. SOUN is notably benefiting from restaurant operators shifting toward AI solutions from legacy answering systems. The demand for AI solutions is not only limited to food ordering services but is also expanding to services such as table reservations and prepaid parking.
When discussing AI solutions for restaurants, SOUN’s next-generation voice commerce solution brightens the screen. This voice-powered AI solution creates a seamless, hands-free order experience across cars, drive-thrus, phones, kiosks and more, giving it a competitive edge over its market peers. This creative edge is enabling it to expand voice commerce to OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) outside of its existing network and beyond food ordering services. As of March 31, 2025, SoundHound AI had more than 15 large restaurant chains entwined in its network, with it grabbing opportunities from partners signing up for reservations and parking services as well. In the first quarter of 2025, SOUN scaled and reached thousands of locations by expanding its partnership with one of the United States’ largest pizza chains for its phone answering and AI solutions.
Catalyzing SOUN’s growth further was the acquisition of Synq3, Inc. in January 2024. Synq3’s solutions, like Smart Answering and Employee Assist, amalgamated with SoundHound AI’s voice-powered AI solutions, introduce restaurant partners and customers to an innovative and advanced technology for improved ordering accuracy. As of March 31, 2025 majority of Synq3’s locations have been upgraded to SOUN’s Polaris model, a multilingual automatic speech recognition (ASR) and foundational voice-AI system.
Currently, the company is undergoing several pilots and POCs with multiple automakers for its voice commerce solution, with being already integrated in many restaurant brands. The robust trends indicate incremental revenue visibility and market share expansion in the long term for SoundHound AI.
Competition in the Voice-Powered AI Solutions Market
SoundHound AI is enjoying a competitive edge over its peers with its next-generation voice commerce solution, but it is not much away from competition in this context. Other renowned market players, including Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, offer noticeable competition in the market to SOUN.
Microsoft, with its Azure OpenAI integrations and Nuance Communications unit, offers substantial restrictions in the market that SoundHound AI operates in. Nuance’s deep roots in healthcare voice automation and conversational AI give Microsoft a strong enterprise footprint, with Azure offering tools for custom enterprise workflows.
On the other hand, Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa Auto seems to be one of the market competitors for SOUN. Amazon’s Alexa Auto leverages its consumer ecosystem to deliver in-car voice functionality. The strength lies in smart home integration and brand familiarity, but OEMs increasingly seek white-labeled, customizable alternatives, an area where SoundHound differentiates.
EPS Trend of SOUN
SOUN’s earnings estimates for 2025 have remained unchanged over the past 60 days at a loss per share of 16 cents. On the contrary, during the said time frame, the earnings estimates of loss per share for 2026 have contracted to five cents.
Earnings Estimate Revision
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Even though the company’s earnings estimates for 2025 and 2026 indicate a loss per share, the estimated values indicate 84.6% and 64.1% year-over-year growth, respectively.
SOUN Stock’s Price Performance & Valuation Trend
Shares of this California-based voice AI company have trended upward 23.9% in the past three months, outperforming the Zacks Computers - IT Services industry, the Zacks Computer and Technology sector and the S&P 500 index.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
SOUN stock is currently trading at a premium compared with the industry peers, with a forward 12-month price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 23.09X, as evidenced by the chart below. The overvaluation of the stock compared with its industry peers indicates its strong potential in the market, given the favorable trends backing it up.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
SOUN stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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