1 Unstoppable Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock to Buy Before It Soars Into the $5 Trillion Club

The U.S. is home to nine companies with a market capitalization of $1 trillion or more. Many of them have crossed the $2 trillion, $3 trillion, and $4 trillion milestones, but artificial intelligence (AI) chip maker Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) became the sole member of the $5 trillion club earlier this year (before the recent dip in its stock price).

I think Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) could be the next company to achieve a $5 trillion valuation, based on the soaring growth of its Azure cloud platform, and the rapid adoption of its Copilot AI assistant. The company has a market cap of $3.5 trillion as I write this, so investors who buy its stock today could earn a whopping 40% return if it does join the exclusive $5 trillion club.

Image source: Getty Images.

Copilot adoption continues to soar

Microsoft's Copilot artificial intelligence (AI) assistant can generate text and image content, write computer code, and answer complex questions on practically any topic. It's embedded for free into the company's flagship Windows operating system, Bing search engine, and Edge internet browser, but it's also available as a paid add-on for the 365 productivity suite (which includes Word, Excel, Outlook, and more).

This represents a huge financial opportunity for Microsoft, because businesses all over the world pay for more than 400 million 365 licenses for their employees, and all of them are eligible for the Copilot upgrade. Uptake is looking great so far, because Microsoft said 90% of the Fortune 500 companies have already adopted Copilot for 365.

During the fiscal 2026 first quarter (ended Sept. 30), global consulting firm PwC purchased a whopping 155,000 licenses, taking its total to more than 200,000 across its organization. PwC's employees have interacted with Copilot 30 million times in the last six months alone, saving millions of hours in their day-to-day roles (according to Microsoft).

But 365 isn't the only AI enterprise opportunity for Microsoft. Dragon Copilot, for example, was designed to reduce the admin burden in medical practices, so doctors can spend more time delivering care. During the first quarter, healthcare professionals used the platform to autonomously document over 17 million patient encounters, which was up fivefold from the year-ago period.

The Azure cloud platform's revenue growth is accelerating

Microsoft's Azure cloud platform is a popular destination for enterprises looking to develop and deploy AI into their operations, whether it's to serve their customers or to make their employees more productive. Azure operates state-of-the-art data centers fitted with advanced chips from suppliers like Nvidia, and businesses rent the computing capacity to fuel their AI development needs.

Microsoft also launched Azure AI Foundry earlier this year, which combines many of the cloud provider's AI services into one holistic platform where businesses can design and manage everything from AI software apps to AI agents. It offers access to over 11,000 ready-made large language models (LLMs) from leading third parties like OpenAI and xAI, which businesses can use to accelerate their AI software projects.

Azure is consistently the fastest growing part of Microsoft's entire organization. Its revenue growth just accelerated for the third consecutive quarter, coming in at 40% during the fiscal 2026 first quarter. That momentum looks set to continue, because Microsoft said demand for AI data center capacity continued to outstrip supply during Q1.

In fact, the company had a staggering $392 billion in remaining performance obligations at the end of Q1, partly from enterprises waiting for more AI infrastructure to come online. To accommodate this, Microsoft plans to double its data center footprint worldwide over the next two years alone.

Microsoft has a clear path to the $5 trillion club

Microsoft stock is trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 33.5 as I write this, which is in line with the 33.4 P/E ratio of the Nasdaq-100 index. In other words, you could say Microsoft is fairly valued relative to its big-tech peers.

However, Wall Street's consensus estimates (provided by Yahoo! Finance) suggest Microsoft's earnings will grow to $15.69 per share during fiscal 2026, followed by $18.63 per share in fiscal 2027. Those forecasts place its stock at forward P/E ratios of 29.3 and 25.1, respectively.

MSFT PE Ratio data by YCharts

That means Microsoft stock will have to soar by 33.5% over the next two years just to maintain its current P/E ratio of 33.5, which would carry its market cap from $3.5 trillion to $4.7 trillion. If the company's earnings come in better than expected over the next year or two -- which is certainly possible given the momentum in its AI products and services -- it could easily find its way into the $5 trillion club.

Even if that doesn't happen, modest earnings growth in fiscal 2028 would likely nudge the company into the $5 trillion club sometime that year.

Anthony Di Pizio has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.