31.3% of Warren Buffett's $303 Billion Portfolio Is Invested in 3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks | The Motley Fool

Warren Buffett became the CEO of the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 0.21%) (BRK.B -0.01%) holding company in 1965. He plans to step down at the end of this year, but he will continue to serve as chairman, so his brand of long-term value investing is likely to endure.

That's great news for investors, because Berkshire stock generated a compound annual return of 19.9% between 1965 and 2024, almost twice the annual gain in the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) over the same period. In fact, a $500 investment in Berkshire stock would have grown to a whopping $22.4 million over that 59-year stretch, whereas the same investment in the S&P 500 would have returned a more modest $171,453.

Buffett has achieved those market-crushing results by investing in companies with steady growth, reliable profits, and strong management teams. He never chases the latest stock market trends, not even those as strong as artificial intelligence (AI). With that said, three of the existing holdings in Berkshire's $303 billion portfolio of publicly traded stocks are using AI to supercharge their businesses.

1. Amazon: 0.8% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio

Amazon (AMZN 0.17%) operates the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing platforms. Berkshire invested in the company in 2019, but Buffett has expressed regret for failing to identify the opportunity much sooner.

Amazon has deployed over 1,000 AI applications across the entire organization, many of which enhance the customer experience on its e-commerce platform. They include a shopping assistant called Rufus that helps customers compare products to make more informed decisions, and an application called Project Private Investigator, which scans products for defects before they're shipped from Amazon's fulfillment centers.

But the company also runs the world's largest cloud platform called Amazon Web Services (AWS), which offers businesses all the tools they need to develop their own AI software. That includes state-of-the-art AI data centers powered by chips from top suppliers like Nvidia, and ready-made large language models (LLMs) such as Nova, which Amazon designed in-house.

During the recent second quarter of 2025 (ended June 30), Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said AI revenue within AWS grew by a triple-digit percentage compared with the year-ago period, meaning it at least doubled.

Although Amazon stock represents a tiny fraction of Berkshire's portfolio, the position is worth $2.3 billion so Buffett and his team can still make some serious money over the long term if the company's AI initiatives continue to grow at the current pace.

2. Coca-Cola: 9.1% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio

Cutting-edge technology and soda are an unlikely pairing, but innovation is exactly how Coca-Cola (KO -0.12%) maintains its position as the world's largest beverage company. AI is becoming an important part of its strategy, transforming supply chains, logistics, and even marketing.

The company signed a groundbreaking deal with Microsoft Azure last year, under which it will spend $1.1 billion by 2029 to bring its AI ambitions to life. It will lean on the cloud giant's expansive suite of tools like the Copilot virtual assistant, and Azure OpenAI Service which offers access to the latest LLMs from ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

In April this year, Coca-Cola signed a separate deal with Adobe to jointly develop a new AI tool called Fizzion. The soda giant manages over 200 brands worldwide, so marketing is always a very complex endeavour, but Fizzion will learn from the processes of human designers to speed up the creation of new assets within Coca-Cola's time-tested and highly successful guidelines.

Buffett spent $1.3 billion to acquire 400 million Coca-Cola shares for Berkshire between 1988 and 1994, and he has never sold a single one. That position is now worth a whopping $27.5 billion, and it will pay Berkshire $816 million in dividends during 2025 alone. AI probably wasn't on Buffett's mind when he first invested in the soda giant, but he could reap significant rewards as this exciting technology unlocks new opportunities.

3. Apple: 21.4% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio

Berkshire spent around $38 billion accumulating Apple (AAPL 3.62%) shares between 2016 and 2023, and by early 2024, that position was worth over $170 billion, which represented half the value of the conglomerate's entire portfolio. Buffett and his team have since booked some profit by selling more than half of Berkshire's Apple stake, which was probably more about prudent portfolio management than concerns about the tech giant's future.

There are more than 2.35 billion active Apple devices worldwide, so this company could soon become the biggest AI touchpoint for consumers. It has been preparing for this moment for years by designing AI-ready chips for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac computers. This hardware paved the way for Apple Intelligence, which is slowly weaving AI software features into each of those devices.

Apple Intelligence introduced new writing tools that can summarize messages and emails, and generate replies with the click of a button. It can also generate images, and even learn to prioritize notifications based on the preferences of each individual user. Its capabilities will continue to expand, which might encourage customers to upgrade their devices more frequently so they have the necessary hardware to unlock every new feature.

Despite Berkshire's selling spree over the past 18 months, Apple remains its largest position with a portfolio weighting of 21.4%.