Wedbush Picks Amazon Over Meta as Superior AI Hyperscaler Stock

Generative AI has moved beyond the emerging-technology phase into mainstream adoption. Since ChatGPT brought generative AI into public consciousness, businesses have invested heavily in integrating AI into their products, while consumers continue discovering new everyday applications. This rapid adoption has created unprecedented infrastructure demands.

Amazon and Meta Platforms exemplify the scale of this investment race. Amazon initially guided for about $100 billion（約16兆円） in capital expenditures last year but ultimately spent more than $131 billion（約21兆円）—a significant overage. Meta exceeded its initial guidance of $60 billion（約9.6兆円） to $65 billion（約10兆円）, finishing the year with more than $72 billion（約12兆円） in capital expenditures. Both companies are building the computing infrastructure required to power capable AI models and roll out new AI features across their ecosystems.

Wedbush analyst Ygal Arounian has made AI the centerpiece of his internet coverage thesis. He argues that AI has become the single most impactful swing factor across the internet ecosystem, reshaping where users begin and complete their online journeys and how businesses build products and services in response. Nearly every company in his coverage universe is directly building its product pipeline to accommodate these behavioral changes. However, Arounian cautions that while behavior is changing, there will not be a wholesale transformation of every aspect of the internet ecosystem. Instead, he believes AI is enabling stronger growth potential, better products, and an overall enhanced user experience across the internet—changes that should accelerate adoption and monetization opportunities. Applying this thesis to individual stocks, Arounian compares Amazon and Meta Platforms as AI leaders to determine which represents the superior hyperscaler stock to buy.

The article frames AI not as an emerging technology but as a dominant force already reshaping major consumer and business behaviors—how people search, shop, create content, and work. Both Amazon and Meta have responded by investing unprecedented sums in computing infrastructure to power AI models and deploy new features across their platforms. Notably, both companies exceeded their initial capital expenditure guidance, indicating either stronger-than-expected AI demand or a strategic decision to accelerate buildout beyond original plans.

Wedbush analyst Ygal Arounian's central thesis is that AI is now the single most impactful swing factor for the internet ecosystem as a whole. Rather than disrupting every aspect of online commerce and content, Arounian expects AI to amplify existing trends—stronger growth, better products, improved user experience—and unlock new monetization opportunities. This framing positions Amazon and Meta not as companies gambling on AI, but as investors in infrastructure that enables the next wave of user adoption. The analyst's choice to compare Amazon and Meta directly reflects their parallel roles as dominant hyperscalers (large cloud and infrastructure providers) racing to control the computing power that AI demand requires.

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