By 2026, These Underrated AI Stocks Could Be the Market's Biggest Winners

While artificial intelligence (AI) stocks have helped drive the market higher, not every AI stock has been a big winner. In fact, the market has often been quick to dub some stocks as AI losers, even though they have big AI opportunities in front of them.

Let's look at three underrated AI stocks that could be huge market winners in 2026.

UiPath

Given its background as a robotic process automation (RPA) company whose platform deploys software bots to handle repetitive rules-based tasks, UiPath (NYSE: PATH) was immediately thrown into the AI loser bucket. After all, AI could eventually replace software bots.

However, software bots are cheaper and thus more suitable for some tasks, and UiPath's platform has the governing and managing structure in place that is a great foundational starting point to manage AI agents.

Now, its new Maestro platform could become a key part of the AI stack. Maestro can manage a digital workforce consisting of both AI agents and software bots, matching them to specific tasks where they have the highest impact at the lowest cost. As more vendors introduce AI agents, this capability becomes even more important.

Trading at a forward price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of just over 5 times 2026 analyst estimates, the stock could have huge upside in 2026 if revenue growth begins to accelerate.

GitLab

GitLab (NASDAQ: GTLB) is another stock that has been labeled an AI loser. However, with the company consistently generating revenue growth of between 25% to 35% each quarter over the past two years, AI has certainly not impacted its growth trajectory.

The company operates a DevSecOps (development, security, and operations) platform, which is an environment to securely create software. The bearish argument is that AI agents will reduce the number of coders, hurting its seat-based subscription model.

However, thus far the company's growth has actually been driven by seat expansion and AI helping increase the amount of software created. The company is also transitioning to a hybrid seat-plus-usage-based model.

Meanwhile, GitLab has introduced its own AI agents through its Duo Agent solution, which not only helps programmers write code but also helps streamline their entire workload. Duo adoption is growing and helping expand its ARPU (average revenue per user). It also helps increase the company's value proposition, which is one of the main reasons that GitLab's new pricing model should be well-received and help drive growth.

For a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company with high 80% gross margins and strong mid-20% revenue growth, the stock is very cheap, trading at a forward P/S multiple below 6 times fiscal year 2027 (ending January 2027) analyst estimates. If it can continue to grow at the same pace, the stock should rebound from here.

Image source: Getty Images.

Adobe

Another stock that has been deemed an AI loser is Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE). However, the company has consistently put up 10% to 11% revenue growth throughout its fiscal 2025, and it just forecast that its annual recurring revenue (ARR) would increase by more than 10% in fiscal 2026.

While AI has not helped the company accelerate its revenue growth, it has helped maintain it. The company offers its own multimodal AI model, Firefly, as well as access to other AI models, including Alphabet's Gemini and Veo and OpenAI's GPT Image and Sora, for its creative product suite, while it also has other AI tools, such as Acrobat AI Assistant and marketing platform GenStudio. Last quarter, it saw its generative AI credit consumption triple sequentially, which is a strong indication that customers will upgrade tiers of purchase to more credits.

Overall, Adobe is a strong earnings compounder trading at an attractive valuation, with a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 15 times. If the company can continue to execute, the stock should have a strong 2026.

Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet, GitLab, and UiPath. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Alphabet, GitLab, and UiPath. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2028 $330 calls on Adobe and short January 2028 $340 calls on Adobe. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.