Last month we held Shareholder Presentations across the country where our Portfolio Managers explained the opportunities they are seeing in AI and how they are harnessing the benefits through their investment process. You can listen to the full recording of the Sydney Shareholder Presentation in the link below.
In today’s rapidly evolving market, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a driving force for companies to boost productivity in an efficient manner, presenting opportunities for investors to participate in this trend in diverse ways. Across our investment portfolios we are positioned to capitalise on AI developments and are focused on finding good quality companies run by strong management teams, with a catalyst to re-rate the share price. Read articles from our Lead Portfolio Managers where they discuss the AI opportunities below.
Global themes driving multi-year earnings growth
Fifteen years ago, amidst the chaos of the global financial crisis, I was in London, working as a global portfolio manager. One prevailing theme was the ageing infrastructure in the US, exacerbated by financial strain and cost-cutting measures. This inadvertently shaped today’s landscape where a significantly outsourced labour force maintains and upgrades the US electricity grid.
Today we are layering onto this same infrastructure unprecedented power demands. We have rising energy demands driven by reshoring of manufacturing, significant power requirements from data centres enabling cloud transitions and AI and then the complexity of adding in renewable energy sources, and electric vehicles into the mix.
Companies poised to benefit from AI
In the past year, our small-to-mid cap investment team has conducted over 5,000 company meetings, engaging with management teams to explore how AI could potentially reshape their business, both positively and negatively. While it is early days, the consensus among these discussions is overwhelmingly positive, with many seeing AI as the largest technological change they have seen. We therefore believe that AI’s revolutionary impact offers compelling investment opportunities across sectors.
AI beneficiaries in the telecom and mining sectors
Over the past few years, AI has developed significantly and meaningfully, driven primarily by excess liquidity from COVID-era monetary policies. Amidst market uncertainties where traditional market indicators have faltered in providing consensus, AI stands out as a clear and promising investment trend with long-term tailwinds.
At its core, AI serves as a valuable productivity tool, particularly in sales operations. As AI continues to influence hardware advancements, the WAM Leaders (ASX: WLE) investment team anticipates significant benefits for companies like Telstra (ASX: TLS) and Santos (ASX: STO).
