Beyond the Bubble: 3 Hidden AI Power Plays

BY ANDY SWAN, FOUNDER, LIKEFOLIO

At the turn of the millennium, investors were convinced the internet was an unstoppable gold rush. Companies with little more than a catchy name and a domain were going public, and valuations soared to levels that had no relationship to reality.

Few captured that mania more than Pets.com.

The company raised hundreds of millions of dollars, bought a Super Bowl ad, and plastered its sock-puppet mascot across television screens.

Pets.com Sock Puppet Mascot (Source: Getty Images via The Guardian)

In February 2000, IPET hit the public markets at $11 a share, promising to reshape how America shopped for pet supplies. But its model was fatally flawed. Shipping 40-pound bags of dog food to customers’ doors cost more than the revenue it brought in.

By November of the same year, just 268 days after its IPO, Pets.com had collapsed into bankruptcy, its shares worth pennies, its mascot reduced to a cautionary tale of a bubble gone bust.

While investors chasing mascots and dot-com dreams were wiped out, another group of companies quietly endured: Utility stocks.

Duke Energy (DUK), Southern Company (SO), Consolidated Edison (ED) – the boring providers of power and gas that nobody bragged about at cocktail parties. Their shares barely moved during the collapse, and dividends kept rolling in.

As the Nasdaq shed nearly 80% of its value between March 2000 and October 2002, utilities lost a fraction of that – and in some cases, gained.

Essential infrastructure did not need hype. It simply worked.

Fast forward to today…

And the talk is all about the “AI bubble.”

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Finding the Next-Level AI Power Plays

Investors are piling into the mega caps like Nvidia (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT) with soaring valuations, convinced this is the only trade that matters. (To be fair, we have several AI plays in our MegaTrends portfolio that are performing handsomely.)

But history is rhyming.

Just as the internet frenzy created enormous hidden demand for bandwidth and electricity, AI is creating a strain on the grid that consumers are just beginning to talk about.

Data centers already consume power at the scale of small cities, and demand is set to triple in the years ahead.

Artificial intelligence does not run on optimism. It runs on electricity… and an aging grid.

Once again, a group of under-the-radar companies are stepping up to supply essential infrastructure. And once again, LikeFolio is uniquely positioned to get you ahead of those next-level AI power plays.

Our Data Engine works 24/7, 365 days a year to track real-time demand and sentiment for thousands of publicly traded companies and consumer trends as they emerge.

In 2025 alone, MegaTrends subscribers have capitalized on next-generation tech plays in AI, nuclear energy, quantum computing, robotics, and more. A well-timed buy alert on nuclear energy innovator Oklo (OKLO) has delivered our subscribers a +170% profit in less than four months. We saw the company developing nuclear reactors to be smaller, faster to deploy, and capable of operating for up to a decade without refueling. The market is beginning to catch onto OKLO’s potential. Thanks to LikeFolio’s insights, our members were there first.

While other investors focus on the obvious AI plays, we’re again leveraging our data to identify the hidden winners – the alternative energy providers powering AI usage, development, and deployment – the names Wall Street isn’t paying attention to yet.

LikeFolio boasts a powerhouse team of researchers whose mission is to put hedge fund-level insights into the hands of everyday retail investors like you.

So this week, our VP of Research Megan Brantley is giving TradeSmith Daily readers a peek behind the research desk to show you three AI power plays poised to benefit from soaring energy demand:

Rapid on-site power: A provider building modular fuel-cell systems that can be deployed in 90 days, giving data centers a way to keep running when the grid cannot keep up.
Always-on renewable supply: A geothermal leader delivering clean baseload energy, tapping into the Earth’s heat to provide uninterrupted power for AI workloads.
Next-generation nuclear fuel: The only domestic source of advanced uranium enrichment, critical to fueling small reactors designed to meet future AI-driven demand.

If OKLO’s scorching rally is any indication, you’ll want to have these picks on your radar now – before the rest of the market piles in:

These are the kinds of companies that history rewards. The hidden backbone plays… the ones investors overlook while chasing the mascots of the moment.

MegaTrends subscribers will receive the full report Megan mentioned to their inboxes next week with the rest of our picks.

If you’re not yet a subscriber, go here now to get on the list for the report… before our next buy alert drops.

Beyond the Bubble: 3 Hidden AI Power Plays