These 3 AI Winners Don’t Sell the Tech—They Use It

As the AI industry remains in its early stages, investors have understandably focused on companies in the center of the space: those firms that build the hardware and infrastructure necessary to run AI systems, for example, or those that build and power data centers.

Many large, well-established companies don't need to be part of this foundational aspect of AI in order to reap the benefits, however. Rather, these firms can utilize AI to bring costs down, increase revenue, boost customer retention, and so on. In this landscape, companies outside of the tech space may be positioned as winners from AI even without being directly involved, so long as they have features like valuable proprietary data or large customer bases. Below are some of the invisible AI companies using and benefiting from the tech despite not making or selling it.

Intuit's Integration of AI Continues to Drive Growth, Cost Savings

A maker of bookkeeping, tax prep, and other financial software, Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU) has successfully embedded AI into its existing products like TurboTax and QuickBooks. This allows users to more easily categorize expenses, draft invoices, generate financial forecasts, and more. For data-heavy financial processes like the ones Intuit aims to serve with its products, the boost provided by AI can be significant.

The company is heading into the second half of 2026 (and the final quarter of its fiscal year) with a strong financial footing. Revenue increased by 10% year over year (YOY) last quarter, and non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) are up as well, with both top and bottom lines beating guidance. Management also recently raised full-year outlooks on both metrics. AI has also allowed Intuit to make workforce reductions of 17% in the last quarter, helping to simplify operations and reduce costs, with the cost savings expected to improve both the bottom line and margin growth.

Intuit is a compelling Moderate Buy both for its anticipated 15% earnings growth in the year to come, as well as its low debt-to-equity ratio of 0.3. The company has more than a decade of history increasing its dividend and currently pays a healthy yield of 1.70%.

Behind-the-Scenes AI Boosts Walmart's Deliveries, Operations, Shopping Experiences

Multinational retail giant Walmart Inc. (NASDAQ: WMT) benefits from AI in a way that is less visible to customers but still incredibly useful at bringing down costs and boosting efficiency. Retail stores like Walmart employ AI to predict demand, reduce inventory shortages, lower food waste, optimize deliveries, institute dynamic pricing, automate customer support, and more. From AI-first shopping experiences to assistive tools for associates, Walmart has jumped into the AI world in numerous ways.

WMT shares have fallen by roughly 9% in the last month and are also down slightly on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, as a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of almost 38 continues to give some investors pause about the company's valuation. Still, its fundamentals are strong in numerous respects: last quarter, the company boosted sales by almost 6% YOY on a constant-currency basis, with e-commerce sales climbing 26% YOY. Traffic, transactions, advertising, membership fee revenue, and margins are all growing quickly. AI has helped Walmart to boost its delivery capacity and efficiency, as the company says more than 60% of U.S. households are reachable in 30 minutes or fewer.

Despite a price dip and valuation hesitation, analysts view Walmart very favorably—eight out of every nine analysts rating the firm give WMT shares a Buy.

JPMorgan's AI Applications Can Cut Costs, Streamline Operations

As one of the largest banks in the world, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) generates an incredible volume of structured data. This makes it a business primed for AI-based improvements, with everything from fraud detection and credit underwriting to risk management, money laundering monitoring, and compliance review all likely to see benefits. In the compliance and operations spaces alone, banks like JPMorgan spend billions each year; modest cost reductions thanks to AI can have a significant positive impact on profitability.

JPMorgan stands out among its rivals thanks to its record Q2 2026 results, including both top- and bottom-line beats, and healthy loan and deposit growth. Net interest income climbed by 9% YOY thanks to favorable rates and an average loan base of $1.5 trillion. A standout metric for the quarter is book value per share, which climbed 9% YOY to $133.01, distinguishing JPMorgan from its peers. With this in mind, JPM's Moderate Buy rating from Wall Street seems fairly earned, even as shares have risen by almost 24% in a rally since late March.

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The article "These 3 AI Winners Don’t Sell the Tech—They Use It" first appeared on MarketBeat.