Nearly Half of Buffett's $398.7 Billion Portfolio Sits in Three AI-Linked Stocks, Led by Apple

Warren Buffett is not a man who chases trends, and yet a Motley Fool analysis published in July 2024 argues that more than 45% of the $398.7 billion in publicly traded securities held by Berkshire Hathaway now sits in three companies positioned to benefit from artificial intelligence. Buffett has run the holding company since 1965, and the piece frames these stakes as products of his usual habits rather than any rush into AI.

Those habits have a long record behind them. Berkshire returned 4,384,748% between 1965 and 2023, a compound annual gain of 19.8%, against 10.2% a year for the S&P 500. In dollar terms, $1,000 put into Berkshire in 1965 would be worth more than $43 million, while the same sum in the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested would be $312,333. Buffett favors steady growth, reliable profitability, strong management, and shareholder-friendly policies like dividends and buybacks.

The smallest of the three positions is Snowflake, at 0.2% of the portfolio. Its Data Cloud pulls a company's data onto one platform, a useful thing for large organizations working across several cloud providers, such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, where data silos tend to form. Last year Snowflake launched Cortex AI, which lets businesses pair ready-made large language models with their own data to build generative AI applications. It includes Document AI, which pulls information from unstructured sources like invoices and contracts, and a Copilot assistant that answers natural-language prompts.

The numbers are less comfortable. In the fiscal 2025 first quarter, which ended April 30, product revenue was $789.6 million, up 34% from a year earlier. That growth is robust on its face, but it continues a deceleration: Snowflake is adding new customers more slowly, and existing customers are expanding their spending more slowly. Berkshire likely paid around $120 a share around the 2020 IPO. The stock reached $392 in 2021, has fallen 63% from there, and trades at $142. The analysis still calls it expensive and suggests investors might avoid it for now.

Amazon, bought in 2019, is the second holding. Buffett has often said he regrets not noticing the opportunity sooner. Amazon began in e-commerce and moved into cloud computing, streaming, and digital advertising; now it is moving into AI. Its AWS division designed its own data center chips, which can cost AI developers up to 50% less than infrastructure running on Nvidia chips. Its Bedrock platform gives developers a library of ready-made models from leading start-ups, plus Amazon's own Titan family. Wall Street forecasts cited in the piece say AI could add anywhere from $7 trillion to $200 trillion to the global economy over the coming decade. Berkshire's Amazon stake is worth $2 billion, just 0.5% of the stock portfolio.

Apple is the heart of the matter, at 44.5% of the portfolio. Berkshire has spent about $38 billion building the position since 2016, and it is now worth $177.6 billion, even after Berkshire sold 13% of it earlier this year for tax reasons. Apple's new Apple Intelligence software, built in partnership with OpenAI, arrives in September alongside iOS 18. Siri and writing tools in Notes, Mail, and iMessage will lean on ChatGPT. With more than 2.2 billion active Apple devices worldwide, the company could become the largest distributor of AI to consumers, and the iPhone 16 is expected to carry a new chip able to handle AI workloads on the device, which could spur upgrades.

The analysis says Apple meets Buffett's criteria: steady growth since 2016, consistent profits, a resolute CEO in Tim Cook, and heavy returns to shareholders. Apple just announced a $110 billion buyback, described as the largest in corporate American history. What to watch is whether Apple Intelligence and the iPhone 16 cycle lift Apple's results, given how much of Berkshire's portfolio rests on that single name.