The next AI winners may look nothing like Nvidia or Micron: One Big Investment Idea

The next AI winners may look nothing like Nvidia ( NVDA ) or Micron ( MU ).

The first phase of the trade rewarded companies building the AI infrastructure , from chips to data centers. As the AI rally broadens , the next hunting ground may be businesses using those tools to cut costs, lift sales, or improve productivity.

The travel industry offers a good case study. Travel stocks took off broadly from their May lows, with airlines leading the first leg. Then the leadership changed.

Airbnb ( ABNB ), Booking Holdings ( BKNG ), and Expedia ( EXPE ) kept climbing into August while hotels stalled and airlines and cruises gave back part of their early surge.

The three booking platforms are up nearly 40% at the median since May 19. Hotels are roughly flat.

The market move is a good reason to look more closely at what is changing inside these companies. One theme jumps out. AI is starting to show up in measurable business results, not just product demos.

There is no way to pin the stock-performance gap on AI alone. But Airbnb and Booking are already putting numbers around the payoff.

At Airbnb, nearly 45% of customer issues that begin with its AI assistant are resolved without a human, while customer support cost per booking has fallen roughly 16% from a year ago, with AI helping drive the improvement.