Berkshire Hathaway Has 30.6% of Its Portfolio in These 2 Magnificent AI Stocks. Here's Why That's a Signal Worth Watching.

Berkshire Hathaway Has 30.6% of Its Portfolio in These 2 Magnificent AI Stocks. Here's Why That's a Signal Worth Watching.

Patrick Sanders, The Motley Fool

Thu, September 17, 2026 at 1:04 PM GMT+3 4 min read

The book on Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA) (NYSE: BRKB) has always focused on stability and core products people use in their everyday lives. The conglomerate is heavily geared toward the insurance and railroad industry, but it also owns more than two dozen companies, including consumer brands like Duracell and Dairy Queen. Its investment portfolio, valued at more than $350 billion, is equally full of blue chip, stable companies such as Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz, and American Express.

But Berkshire Hathaway, which was led by famed investor Warren Buffett for 60 years before Greg Abel became CEO this year, isn't afraid to dabble in artificial intelligence (AI) as well. In fact, 30.6% of Berkshire's entire portfolio (more than $112 billion) is invested in two top AI stocks -- Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL).

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Here's what Berkshire sees in these AI companies, and why even the most staid companies like Berkshire can find value in AI stocks.

Berkshire AI Stock No. 1: Apple

Berkshire Hathaway has owned Apple stock since 2016 -- roughly five years after Apple integrated its Siri virtual assistant into the iPhone. And while Apple has high hopes that Siri AI, the upgraded version that incorporates generative AI into the longtime assistant, will boost Apple's fortunes in the AI revolution, that's not the reason why Buffett, who was CEO at the time, bought Apple stock.

Instead, Buffett has spoken in near-reverent terms about Apple's ecosystem, noting that consumers seem to be psychologically attached to their iPhones and are extraordinarily loyal. In 2020, he lamented not buying Apple stock earlier, calling it "probably the best business I know in the world."

Apple is still Berkshire's largest single holding, but Berkshire has shed hundreds of millions of Apple shares in recent years. In 2023, Berkshire held 914.5 million shares of Apple, which accounted for about 50% of its total portfolio. Today, the conglomerate holds just under 228 million shares, which is still good for 20.7% of the entire Berkshire Hathaway portfolio.

Apple's AI strategy is different from that of many other big tech companies. Instead of building data centers and buying as many GPUs as possible to create its own large language model, it's focusing on embedding AI programs on its devices, with Siri AI as the biggest example. The idea behind Apple's Intelligence initiative is to protect user privacy by processing AI tasks on users' devices, with more complex requests handed off to the company's cryptographically secured cloud servers.

The result, Berkshire hopes, is that Apple's customer base remains loyal to the Apple ecosystem.

Berkshire AI Stock No. 2: Alphabet

While Berkshire has owned Apple stock for more than a decade, its stake in Alphabet is new -- the company bought Alphabet stock for the first time in the third quarter of 2025, buying 17.86 million shares for $5.18 billion.

But Berkshire wasn't done by a long shot. In the first quarter of 2026, with the company now under Abel's leadership, Berkshire bought another 36.4 million shares of Alphabet. And then the conglomerate bought another $17 billion in Alphabet stock, including $10 billion in a private placement, as Alphabet raised $80 billion to fund AI infrastructure.

Today, Berkshire Hathaway owns 78.79 million shares of Alphabet's Class A stock and 27.18 million shares of its Class C stock. Combined, Alphabet is Berkshire's third-largest holding, making up 10.1% of the conglomerate's portfolio.

Alphabet has a multifaceted AI strategy. Google Cloud is the third-largest cloud computing company in the world, and generated $24.8 billion in revenue in the second quarter, up 81% from a year ago. Alphabet has also integrated its Gemini intelligent assistant into its powerful advertising business to improve ad quality and enhance advertiser tools. Gemini is also incorporated into Google Search to add AI overviews to search queries, as well as other Google products, including Android and Workspace.

Alphabet is one of Berkshire Hathaway's newest holdings, but it has quickly become an important one.

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Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Patrick Sanders has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, American Express, Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool recommends Kraft Heinz. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Berkshire Hathaway Has 30.6% of Its Portfolio in These 2 Magnificent AI Stocks. Here's Why That's a Signal Worth Watching. was originally published by The Motley Fool