Artificial intelligence continues to reshape the investment landscape, with certain software firms showing growth both with and without the tailwind of AI adoption. These companies are trading at the lower end of their historic valuation multiples, making them attractive opportunities, according to one technology analyst.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, who highlighted Monday.com, Snowflake and Datadog as his top “no brainer growth” stock picks. He said these firms are well positioned to benefit from AI while maintaining strong fundamentals.
Key Takeaways
- AI adoption is fuelling demand for tools that organize, analyze and monitor data.
- Monday.com leverages AI to expand work collaboration and customer management functions.
- Snowflake centralizes structured and unstructured data, enabling effective AI deployment.
- Datadog benefits from monitoring AI-driven infrastructure and serving AI-native firms.
- Each stock trades at the lower end of its historic valuation range, creating potential entry points.
Read the full transcript below:
ANDREW: Time for Hot Picks. Our guest has selected three names he calls ideas in “no brainer growth.” He says these companies are trading at reasonable prices. Yes, they have benefited from the growth in AI, but they also have strong expansion prospects without it. We’re joined by Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson. Always great to see you, Gil. Can we start with your first idea? I saw it advertising on the Toronto subway today — Monday.com, a work collaboration software company. Tell us about it.
GIL: Monday.com is the leader in work collaboration software, and it’s really taken hold with the small business community. They want workflows and collaboration, and Monday delivers that. It also helps organize data into a unified schema, which means it can offer customers operations and customer relationship management software. That’s led to growth in the 20 per cent range, recently in the mid-20s, which is hard to find. Yet it’s trading at only 25 times cash flow, the lowest multiple it has ever traded at.
ANDREW: Let’s move on to your next idea: Snowflake, an analytic database software company. A lot of businesses are overwhelmed with data. Snowflake helps with that?
GIL: That’s right. If you want to organize your data in the cloud so you can do reporting, Snowflake has become the default. Even before AI, it was growing in the 20 per cent range. Now, with so many more applications being created by AI, the need for data to be centralized is even greater. Revenue is accelerating into the high-20s. Essentially, it’s Snowflake, Databricks — which will go public later this year — or the hyperscalers. As AI grows, demand for Snowflake grows.
ANDREW: Finally, Datadog, an observability software company. Old software often wasn’t documented, and changing it could break the whole system. Datadog helps monitor applications, which is especially important as AI proliferates.
GIL: Exactly. Same story as Snowflake. Already growing in the 20s, doing well by helping monitor software and infrastructure. With AI, there’s more software and more complex infrastructure to track, which accelerates Datadog’s revenue. Many native AI companies are customers, including OpenAI, which has added two to three points of growth alone. So AI is driving revenue in two different ways at Datadog.
ANDREW: Datadog has bounced off its lows from earlier this year. It seems to have escaped concerns about the unpredictability of AI in software.
GIL: That’s right. For Datadog, AI is purely positive. There’s no new competition emerging because of AI, and Datadog has such a big lead in serving AI companies that it should continue to grow at these rates and potentially double revenue in the next three years.
ANDREW: And Snowflake? Would you say it’s a similar story — that it gains from AI?
GIL: Absolutely. Right now, companies have data scattered everywhere. You can’t use AI tools broadly if the data isn’t in one place. So companies are moving their data to Snowflake so they can do AI analytics, reporting, training and storage.
ANDREW: It’s interesting. As customers, we may end up dealing more with AI agents rather than people. Will companies take responsibility for what their AIs do?
GIL: They have to. Liability is still on the company. There was a case last year where an airline bot promised a full refund even though it wasn’t deserved. The company had to honour it. The good news is these tools are getting better and making fewer mistakes. Companies are learning to put guardrails in place. We’ll see more customer interaction with AI, and the voices are becoming less robotic — though sometimes that’s a bit unsettling. Still, it’s often faster than waiting on hold for a representative.
ANDREW: That was Air Canada in February 2024. Its chatbot misled a customer on bereavement fare policies. The airline argued otherwise, but the customer won in small claims court. One last question, Gil. Harvard Business Review published a story about a new word: “workslop.” This is content generated by employees using AI prompts, often low quality, which others then waste time fixing.
GIL: Yes, that’s a new challenge. AI amplifies. If you’re good at something and use AI well, it makes you better. If you’re not, it makes things worse. Remember the first Captain America movie? The serum made Steve Rogers into Captain America, but turned Red Skull into a threat to the universe. AI works the same way. Used well, it makes us hugely productive. Used poorly, it produces garbage.
ANDREW: Amazon is already flooded with AI-generated books. The same may be happening in music.
GIL: Exactly. Expect streaming platforms to follow. Netflix, for example, could use AI to combine elements of shows we’ve already enjoyed into new series designed to appeal directly to us. We’ll start to see mass-customized media. While there will be slop, AI could also produce engaging content tailored to individual tastes.
ANDREW: Gil, thank you very much. Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson.
| DISCLOSURE | PERSONAL | FAMILY | PORTFOLIO/FUND |
|---|---|---|---|
| MNDY | N | N | N |
| SNOW NYSE | N | N | N |
| DDOG NASD | N | N | N |
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Sept. 25, 2025 interview with Gil Luria are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.
