Key Points
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Sure, Meta’s capital expenditures are soaring. But revenue is surging, too.
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Pinterest’s platform engagement trends are impressive.
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Both companies could be major beneficiaries of artificial intelligence.
The market seems hyper-focused on the staggering sums companies are spending to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure, questioning whether these sums will pay off over time. In addition, there’s uncertainty about how AI will impact businesses and even the economy.
This market skittishness has led to some big pullbacks in the prices of many tech stocks.
While some tech stocks may deserve their recent beatings, there are also some high-quality companies that have arguably been oversold. Two digital advertising platforms, in particular, are posting record engagement while trading at valuations that leave room for long-term upside.
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Here is a closer look at why Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) and Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) look like top tech stocks to buy today.
A person looking at charts on a laptop.
Image source: Getty Images.
Meta Platforms is spending heavily on its future
Based on the company’s recent performance, you wouldn’t expect Meta stock to be taking a beating. But it is. Shares are down 13% year to date.
The social media giant’s fourth-quarter revenue rose 24% year over year to nearly $59.9 billion. This top-line momentum was fueled by an 18% increase in ad impressions and a 6% rise in average price per ad across its family of apps.
Further, this robust revenue growth translated to $36.2 billion in operating cash flow during the period — up from $28.0 billion in the year-ago quarter. This put total 2025 operating cash flow at about $116 billion.
But what has some investors worried is the company’s appetite for spending. Management expects 2026 capital expenditures to be between $115 billion and $135 billion.
This commitment comes as management sees significant growth opportunities enabled by artificial intelligence (AI).
“We are now seeing a major AI acceleration,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in late January. “I expect 2026 to be a year where this wave accelerates even further on several fronts.”
That is an enormous capital commitment that will almost undoubtedly pressure margins. But the stock’s lowered valuation after its recent decline arguably helps balance out the risk.
Meta trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of about 24 as of this writing. For a business growing its top line at a 24% clip and sitting on over $81 billion in cash and marketable securities, this seems like a fair price.
Pinterest’s record engagement meets ad pressure
Pinterest’s story is slightly different. The visual discovery engine is seeing impressive user growth, but its financial performance has been a bit bumpier recently.
In the fourth quarter, Pinterest’s global monthly active users impressively increased 12% year over year to an all-time high of 619 million. Yet revenue for the quarter grew 14% — a deceleration from 17% in the prior quarter.
A challenging market for its advertisers is weighing on advertising spend on its platform.
Indeed, “our largest retail advertisers created a more meaningful headwind than we expected as they sought to protect their margins in this dynamic environment and pulled back on ad spend,” said Pinterest chief financial officer Julia Donnelly in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
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In addition, management said it expected these headwinds to persist in Q1.
Still, there are some things for investors to be excited about. In particular, management seems convinced that Pinterest will be an AI beneficiary.
“As AI adoption accelerates, general-purpose search is increasingly up for grabs, as the largest players pour capital into general-purpose [large language models],” explained Pinterest CEO Bill Ready in the company’s earnings call. “But fit-for-purpose search still wins in key verticals like travel and consumer products.”
So how does Pinterest stand out as a “fit-for-purpose” search model?
“Our differentiation is clear,” explained Ready. “We’re using AI to power visual search, discovery, and shopping, not general-purpose text-based search.”
With a price-to-earnings ratio of around 30, the stock isn’t necessarily cheap. But if Pinterest gets things right in the era of AI, engagement and advertising performance could soar. And if this happens as the retail and advertising environments eventually stabilize, Pinterest could see a significant acceleration in its business.
There are no guarantees, but the upside looks promising
Are these two tech stocks guaranteed to soar?
Definitely not.
Both companies face real near-term risks that investors need to carefully consider.
Meta’s staggering capital expenditures could weigh heavily on its free cash flow and earnings growth — especially if its AI monetization efforts take longer than expected to pay off or — even worse — don’t ever yield an attractive return.
Meanwhile, Pinterest is heavily reliant on the retail advertising market, which has recently shown signs of pulling back, potentially keeping the company’s revenue growth under pressure in the coming quarters.
Despite these uncertainties, I think both stocks look attractive over the long haul — especially for investors with the patience to wait for the retail environment and advertising sentiment to pick back up. However, given new risks introduced by AI and the current macroeconomic backdrop, keeping any positions small in these high-risk investments is probably wise.
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Daniel Sparks and his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms and Pinterest. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.