Pinpointing the leading tech stocks for the year ahead poses a complex challenge, especially in the swiftly evolving technology landscape. Investors familiar with the stock market understand that artificial intelligence has recently taken center stage. Yet, history shows that even the most celebrated tech stocks have ridden waves of hype, only to face sharp downturns thereafter.
So how do you separate the best tech stocks to buy now from the fad stocks trading on short-lived news trends? And how do today’s small technology stocks become tomorrow’s tech giants? Read on, and I’ll discuss that, and give you an overview of the best tech picks for 2025.
Disclaimer: This article does not constitute individualized investment advice. These securities appear for your consideration and not as investment recommendations. Act at your own discretion.
Editor’s Note: Tabular data presented in this article are up-to-date as of March 3, 2025.
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Table of Contents
Why Invest in the Tech Sector?
Many investors are interested in top tech stocks for good reason. Disruptive technologies can sometimes lead to dramatic revenue growth, and dramatic gains in a firm’s stock price as a result.
In fact, technology companies sometimes chase that revenue growth for years without ever focusing on bottom-line profits. Some of the best-performing tech (and “tech-esque”) stocks in history include Amazon.com (AMZN) and Meta Platforms (META), which both prioritized ramping up their long-term scale over short-term profitability.
And look where they are now. Both are among the biggest companies on the planet, outperforming the market by wide margins over the last several years.
This is why many investors look for growth stocks within the tech sector and tech-adjacent companies. It’s not for the short-term profits or dividends, but rather the hopes of a “moonshot” stock that grows exponential revenue growth in short order, delivering life-changing profits to its investors in the process.
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The Best Tech Stocks to Invest In
Some of the best-performing tech stocks are very recognizable names. But before you buy any of them, don’t forget that investing is fundamentally about the future. That means learning about the product pipeline and R&D beyond what’s on the surface.
Leading tech firms are often the parent company of lesser-known products or services that could be just as interesting. Particularly when it comes to entrenched mega-cap tech stocks, their future potential depends on revenue streams that have yet to be fully realized yet—not the big-name products consumers currently use.
1. Accenture
— Market capitalization: $217.4 billion
— Dividend yield: 1.7%
— Industry: IT services and consulting
Professional services specialist Accenture (ACN) has made a name for itself by providing “DevOps” blueprints to top companies around the world. This unique approach involves high technological improvements such as custom software development, systems upgrades, and data migration to ultimately provide improved service and efficiencies across complex organizations.
Whether it’s helping a firm get smarter about its customers through data analytics and artificial intelligence or simply consulting on how to trim the IT fat after a complex acquisition, Accenture is a firm that the biggest brands in the world turn to to solve their tech problems. And with a recently announced team-up with Amazon to provide generative AI solutions to clients, Accenture is working hard to ensure it has the right tools for the future as well as for today.
“We believe Accenture remains a market leader in developing and investing in next-generation capabilities, and the company’s global presence and scale remain strategic differentiators that are not easily replicated,” say William Blair analysts, who rate the stock at Outperform (equivalent of Buy). “We remain positive on Accenture’s story and the intrinsic value, given a structurally strong business, stable balance sheet, and positive free cash flows.”
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2. Adobe
— Market capitalization: $193.0 billion
— Dividend yield: N/A
— Industry: Enterprise software
Creative software and services firm Adobe (ADBE) is the go-to platform for photographers, marketing directors, educators, publishers, and just about anyone who uses visuals to tell a story.
With loyal customers and long-term certainty thanks to subscription-based revenue rather than one-off product sales, ADBE is a growth-oriented tech stock to consider for 2025 and beyond. As proof of the fact Adobe is looking to the future, it has invested heavily in “Firefly” artificial intelligence tools that continue to cause a buzz about the potential for computer assisted design in the 21st century.
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To be fair, ADBE stock itself hasn’t been a great story over the past few months. Shares have bucked the broader market’s bull trend, falling into bear territory amid, among other things, weak guidance for current-quarter revenues.
Still, most pros remain convinced that ADBE will right the ship.
“We think that Adobe has positioned itself at the center of the exploding market for digital video content and advertising creation and management,” says Argus Research analyst Joseph Bonner (Buy). The company has an admirable track record of innovation and a unique collection of software assets centered on its Creative Cloud tools, which enable enterprise, professional and amateur users to create and manage digital content.
“We think that Adobe will continue to ramp up investment in new product extensions, particularly around generative AI, as it pursues a rapidly expanding total addressable market.”
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3. Amazon
— Market capitalization: $2.2 trillion
— Dividend yield: N/A
— Industry: Online retail/cloud
Amazon (AMZN) dominates the retail world. It is a one-stop shop for nearly anything you could want. And it has redefined customer expectations—they were a pioneer in two-day, one-day and even same-day shipping.
And yet, it’s also so much more than that.
Amazon is also the world’s biggest cloud provider through AWS, it’s an entertainment company through its Amazon Prime service, and it’s one of the biggest advertising companies, behind only giants Google and Facebook. AMZN makes for such an attractive stock because it’s supported by a diversified business with ample opportunities to enter new markets and disrupt well-seated industry incumbents.
That said, the optimism about future growth is mostly centered around AWS, cloud, and the potential growth AI could deliver.
“While AI on AWS is already a multibillion-dollar business, we are still in the very early phases. An increasing number of applications are likely to become AI centric or agentic over time, which we believe bodes well for long-term AWS growth.” William Blair’s equity analysis team, which rates the stock at Outperform, said after the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report. “Further, lower cost of inferencing, which is implied by DeepSeek, is very likely to proliferate AI applications, which is once again a positive for AWS. And we believe Amazon’s full stack AI offering positions the company well to be a primary partner for businesses looking to deploy AI.”
Wedbush analysts, who also rate the stock at Outperform, add that investors should moderate their near-term expectations.
“While we are optimistic on the long-term margin trajectory of the business, we acknowledge that the magnitude of operating income beats in the coming quarters are likely to be more modest as the company makes incremental investments to support AI initiatives and longer-term bets including Project Kuiper,” a Wedbush analyst team says.
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4. ASE Technology
— Market capitalization: $23.6 billion
— Dividend yield: 2.9%
— Industry: Semiconductor manufacturing
Taiwan-based semiconductor firm ASE Technology (ASX) is not a design shop, but a manufacturer of third-party chips. Providing only the packaging, testing, and manufacturing isn’t as high-margin of a business, but does offer consistent income—as evidenced by a yield that is more than quadruple the typical S&P 500 component, thanks to incredibly consistent revenue and large customers with long-term relationships.
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Thanks to increasing demand for chips in the world, ASE delivered a 60% total return (price plus dividends) in 2023, though its returns were blunted to just single digits in 2024. Nonetheless, analysts are generally bullish on the stock, projecting 28% long-term earnings growth and top-line gains in the low teens for the next few years.
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5. Microsoft
— Market capitalization: $2.9 trillion
— Dividend yield: 0.8%
— Industry: Enterprise software
Microsoft (MSFT) is a dominant tech stock that has seen amazing growth over the past few decades. But despite that, as well as a more than $3 trillion market cap, MSFT still shows no signs of slowing down.
The average person knows Microsoft for its iconic Windows and Office productivity software for personal computers, as well as its Xbox gaming console and related software, which is only getting more dominant after a nearly $70 billion deal to acquire game studio Activision Blizzard (ATVI).
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But Microsoft also is a major player in cloud computing, via its still-growing Azure cloud services, and an emerging titan in artificial intelligence—for better or worse.
“CEO Satya Nadella sees [generative AI] as a rare change to a fundamental computing paradigm, and Microsoft is moving to exploit the opportunities opened up by Gen AI as quickly as possible, as demand currently outstrips the supply of its cloud services,” says Argus Research analyst Joseph Bonner (Buy). “However, the market, fickle as ever, may be concerned about the ramping costs and investments in Microsoft’s GenAI infrastructure as it races against competitors Alphabet and Meta, as well as a host of smaller AI startups, to develop the new GenAI models/applications that may drive the emerging GenAI market as a whole.”
Revenue and profit projections for the current fiscal year are currently in the low double digits, with pros believing the stock can indeed keep getting bigger and delivering profits for its shareholders.
“Management remains laser-focused on optimizing margins across all business segments to help offset AI investment needs,” say William Blair analysts, who rate the stock at Outperform. “For full year fiscal 2025, despite capital expenditures expected to be up in comparison to fiscal 2024, operating margin is expected to increase slightly year-over-year while operating income is expected to grow double digits.”
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6. Palo Alto Networks
— Market capitalization: $126.0 billion
— Dividend yield: N/A
— Industry: Cybersecurity
In an age of persistent cybersecurity and hacking concerns, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) stands out as a company with both a reliable customer base as well as the near certainty of increased revenue coming its way across the coming years.
But investors will have to deal with short-term turbulence as the cybersecurity darling makes a massive change to the way it does business.
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Palo Alto is migrating to a security platform approach, and it’s banking on comped services to attract customers to it. That, as well as a slowdown in business with the federal government, led the company to lower full-year billings and revenue guidance at the start of last year, which tanked shares, shaking out at least a few bulls in the process. But PANW recovered throughout the rest of the year, and by and large, pros remain bullish on PANW’s longer-term prospects.
“While not an inflection point in its platformization strategy, the seeds of growth are falling into place as PANW is in the driver’s seat to gain market and mind share in the cyber security landscape, especially with more companies heading down the AI path over the coming years,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives (Outperform) wrote following Palo Alto’s Street-beating (but not Street-clobbering) report for the second quarter of its 2025 fiscal year.”
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7. Salesforce
— Market capitalization: $285.3 billion
— Dividend yield: 0.5%
— Industry: Enterprise software
So-called “customer relationship management” software helps marketing and sales staff make the most of their prospects.
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And as you can probably tell by the ticker, Salesforce (CRM) is the world leader in CRM tools with a customer base of more than 150,000 companies that it helps to increase productivity, customer loyalty, and sales revenue. Salesforce stock shot up 125% in 2023 and delivered a 27% gain in 2024; meanwhile, for this year and next, the pros are projecting high-single-digit to low-double-digit growth on the top and bottom lines.
“The world has changed for Salesforce amid increased macroeconomic uncertainty and weaker customer demand. However, the company continues to deliver on product innovation with its new agentic generative AI Agentforce platform,” says Argus Research analyst Joseph Bonner, who rates CRM shares at Buy. “Management is delivering on boosting cost leverage, profitability, and cash flow in the current operating environment—something the market is demanding from tech companies of any size these days.”
Bonner adds that “we like that Salesforce is applying strong cash flow not just to rapid organic innovation but also to shareholder returns in the form of large share repurchases and the dividend [which was initiated in 2024].”
Truist analyst Terry Tillman, who also rates the stock a Buy, emphasizes the early success of the company’s AI-agent system, Agentforce.
“With the 3,000 paid Agentforce deals signed to-date (5K total customers leveraging the product), the company continues to promote pricing on a $2 per ‘conversation’ basis, and noted healthy landed prices even after considering some level of discounting,” he says. “With a plethora of use cases, $2 per conversation pricing represents significant savings and [return on investment] for the customer, particularly with automations that save significant time for humans.”
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8. Shopify
— Market capitalization: $143.6 billion
— Dividend yield: N/A
— Industry: E-commerce
Shopify (SHOP) is an e-commerce infrastructure company that helps small and mid-sized businesses market and sell products through various digital sales channels. The basics include web and mobile storefronts, but SHOP also supports “omnichannel” integration with brick and mortar locations to manage inventory, as well as analytics and reporting to maximize profitability and customer loyalty.
This tech stock well more than doubled in 2023, then gained another 37% in 2024, thanks to expectations for continued growth and success. In 2025, the pros are looking for revenues to jump another 25% while expecting a 19% improvement in adjusted profits.
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Oppenheimer analysts call Shopify “a generational technology disruptor in a large and underpenetrated Digital Commerce opportunity” and rate shares at Outperform.
“Shopify has established itself as a fast-growing, pure play SaaS Commerce application vendor that is taking share of retailer technology spend,” they say.” We think Shopify is well led by a visionary and respected management team and are confident in its multi-year growth potential. Shopify is a generational technology disruptor in a large and underpenetrated Digital Commerce opportunity.
We all know the potential of e-commerce thanks to the success of Amazon. But SHOP is concerned with every other merchant out there that also has the potential to reach new customers in a digital age.
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9. Vertex
— Market capitalization: $8.8 billion
— Dividend yield: N/A
— Industry: E-commerce
Vertex (VERX) is a budgeting and tax technology specialist that serves a host of industries ranging from retail to communication to manufacturing firms worldwide. It offers specialized software and cloud-based solutions that assists with tax determination, compliance and reporting that is far more sophisticated than your typical e-filing software.
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Vertex shares nearly doubled in 2024, but they have plunged by 40% so far in 2025 amid a combination of broader tech-industry weakness as well as disappointing organic growth from its most recent earnings report.
Even then, the pros largely remain on Vertex’s side.
“While we acknowledge results were softer than anticipated, we continue to view Vertex as a high-quality asset with ramping growth tailwinds from the SAP and Oracle ERP migrations and e-invoicing mandates in international markets,” say William Bair analysts, who rate VERX stock at Outperform. “We also note that Vertex has a strong track record of capitalizing on its investments back into the business. Moving forward, we believe the company’s investor day on March 19 could be a good catalyst to improve investor sentiment around the story.”
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Is Technology the Best Sector in the Stock Market?
Technology stocks regularly are among the best-performing stocks on Wall Street, and they historically beat the broader S&P 500 index. But that should not be misunderstood to mean that the tech sector is a sure thing. According to Pensions & Investments, the technology sector slumped -28.2% in 2022—more than 10 percentage points worse than the broader market.
In other words, there are lots of reasons to like technology stocks and the tech sector. But there’s no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to investing.
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Are There Any Downsides to Investing in Tech Companies?
Many tech companies can be quite volatile as they pursue their long-term potential, often at the cost of short-term profits—or even short-term stock performance. One of the most common downsides of investing in tech stocks is that they can move up and down much more dramatically than sleepy sectors such as utility stocks or consumer staples.
That’s also what makes them popular stocks to buy, however. Those big moves are great when they are in an investor’s favor. Just be aware that the big downside of investing in tech companies is … well, the potential for bigger downsides.
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Related: 13 Best Long-Term Stocks to Buy and Hold Forever
As even novice investors probably know, funds—whether they’re mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs)—are the simplest and easiest ways to invest in the stock market. But the best long-term stocks also offer many investors a way to stay “invested” intellectually—by following companies they believe in. They also provide investors with the potential for outperformance.
So if you’re looking for a starting point for your own portfolio, look no further. Check out our list of the best long-term stocks for buy-and-hold investors.
Related: 10 Best Monthly Dividend Stocks for Frequent, Regular Income
The vast majority of American dividend stocks pay regular, reliable payouts—and they do so at a more frequent clip (quarterly) than dividend stocks in most other countries (typically every six months or year).
Still, if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “it’d sure be nice to collect these dividends more often,” you don’t have to look far. While they’re not terribly common, American exchanges boast dozens of monthly dividend stocks.
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