Investors may want to keep an eye on this artificial intelligence voice-and-speech recognition stock with ties to Nvidia . Shares of SoundHound AI have surged almost 170% this year and nearly 347% in February alone as investors bet on new applications for the booming technology trend that’s taken Wall Street by storm. Last month, Nvidia revealed a $3.7 million bet on the stock in a securities filing, and management said on an earnings call that “demand is going through the roof.” “We continue to believe that the company is in a strong position to capture its fair share of the AI chatbot market demand wave with its technology providing more use cases going forward,” wrote Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives in a February note. SOUN YTD mountain SoundHound shares in 2024 While the Nvidia investment isn’t new news for investors and analysts, it does reinforce SoundHound’s value proposition. Ives also noted that the stake “solidifies the company’s brand within the AI Revolution” and lays the groundwork for a potential larger investment in the future. To be sure, relatively few Wall Street shops cover the AI stock. A little over 80% rate it with a buy or overweight rating, with consensus price targets suggesting upside of nearly 24%, per FactSet. The company also sits at a roughly $1.7 billion market capitalization and has yet to attain profitability. Expanding its total addressable market Along with its Nvidia relationship, SoundHound has partnered with a slew of popular restaurant brands, automakers and hospitality companies to provide AI voice customer solutions. While the company works with about quarter of total automobile companies, “the penetration into that customer set only amounts to 1-2% of global sales, leaving significant room for growth within the current customer base as well as growth from adding new brands,” said Ladenburg Thalmann’s Glenn Mattson in a January note initiating coverage with a buy rating. “With voice enabled units expected to grow to 70% of shipments by 2026, this represents a significant growth opportunity, in our view,” he added. SoundHound has also made significant headway within the restaurant industry, recently adding White Castle, Krispy Kreme and Jersey Mike’s to its growing list of customers, analysts note. That total addressable market should continue growing as major players such as McDonald’s, DoorDash and Wendy’s hunt for ways to expand AI voice use, said D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria. He estimates an $11-billlion total addressable market when accounting for the immediate opportunities from quick service restaurants and original equipment manufacturers. “SoundHound’s long term opportunity is attractive and largely up for grabs,” he said in a September note initiating coverage with a buy rating. “Given the high degree of technical complexity required to create value in this space, we see SoundHound with its best-of-breed solution as a likely winner and expect it to win significant market share.” Headwinds to profitability While demand for SoundHound AI’s products appears to be accelerating, investors should beware of a bumpy road ahead. Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brett Knoblauch noted that being in the early stages of product adoption creates uncertainties surrounding the “pace of revenue growth and timeline to positive FCF.” Although H.C. Wainwright’s Scott Buck views SoundHound’s significant bookings backlog and accelerating revenue growth as supportive of a premium valuation, he noted that the recent acquisition of restaurant automation technology company SYNQ3 could delay profitability to next year. But “we suspect the longer term financial and operating benefits to meaningfully outweigh short-term profitability headwinds,” he said. “We recommend investors continue to accumulate SOUN shares ahead of stronger operating results.”
This story originally appeared on CNBC
