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Written by Marc Guberti for The Motley Fool
Muse could be a major catalyst for Shopify, giving new merchants another reason to choose the platform.
PayPal could get a boost from Muse transactions, and it wouldn't take much of a jump in revenue growth to send the stock rallying.
Nebius provides compute that both Meta Platforms and Amazon will use to power their AI agents.
Rather than continuing to rely almost exclusively on online ads for its sales, Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) is looking to diversify its revenue streams with its new Muse agentic AI. However, one company isn't playing ball.
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) said it is blocking Muse from purchasing products on its website. Consumers are still using the personal AI agent to make purchases on other sites, though, and the AI model's user base is growing faster than ChatGPT's did in its early days.
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Amazon would prefer to create its own suite of AI agents instead. If it keeps Muse off its platform, these three AI stocks could be some of the biggest winners.
The bullish scenario for Shopify is that Muse will change how people shop. A personal AI agent that is being rapidly adopted will streamline purchases, and it's not allowed to consider buying through Amazon.
Amazon has effectively eliminated itself from competing for a lucrative e-commerce opportunity, but Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) has taken the opposite position. It partnered with Meta Platforms to streamline how Muse browses Shopify stores and buys items on consumers' behalf.
"Shoppers find more. Shops sell more," Zuckerberg said when touting the partnership. It's perhaps the simplest way to describe the tailwind Shopify now enjoys due to its partnership.
The immediate catalyst comes with solid fundamentals, which included 34% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter. Shopify President Harley Finkelstein said the company is using AI to expand what's possible for its customers while noting, "no one else comes close."
Gross merchandise volume jumped by more than 30%, so it's not like Shopify is relying on fees, ads, and subscription hikes to make extra money. Real customers are showing up more often, and that trend should continue with Muse. Shopify's partnership with Meta Platforms can also incentivize more merchants to set up their shops on Shopify, and once that is done, switching costs make the platform stickier.
Meta Platforms named PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) one of the payment options for Muse orders. The boosted e-commerce activity will translate into additional PayPal transactions.
PayPal isn't as exciting as Shopify. It only posted 5% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter, and it remains a potential acquisition target. Net profit margins have been dipping, but remain above 10%.
PayPal is a mature fintech company that is relying on stock buybacks to increase shareholder value. It also has a dividend that yields above 1% at the current share price, and sports a low 10 P/E ratio.
This setup means its revenue growth would not have to accelerate by much to spark a rally. Investors who are strictly looking for growth stocks may want to consider alternatives, but PayPal's inclusion in the Muse ecosystem could increase its transaction volume and revenue growth rates.
A lot of money is at stake as AI expands. If Muse becomes the top AI agent and people task it with doing a significant share of their shopping, Amazon could lose meaningful ground. Meta Platforms is doing everything it can to integrate Muse into Facebook and Instagram, which will make it even easier for consumers to bypass Amazon when buying products.
However, Amazon won't go down quietly. The company is building its own portfolio of powerful AI agents, and other tech companies are doing the same. Hyperscalers are eagerly throwing billions of dollars at AI each month to compete for these opportunities, knowing it will be difficult to dethrone the first company or product to reach mainstream appeal.
Nebius (NASDAQ: NBIS) stands at the center of this competition as a provider of AI compute. It builds data centers that can handle the intense workloads of AI models and agents. The company already has Microsoft and Meta Platforms as long-term customers, and the value of its resources has soared in recent months.
Nebius was signing deals at $12 million per year for a megawatt at the start of 2026. Now, it's getting short-term deals that put each megawatt at more than $40 million per year. Nebius can do deals that include hundreds of megawatts for a single hyperscaler, and with a projected 5-gigawatt pipeline by the end of the year, revenue can scale quickly.
As Nebius brings more data centers online, its revenue and margins should expand. Investors got a hint of that future when Nebius delivered 454% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter. Ongoing agentic AI battles between the tech giants should increase the value of Nebius' infrastructure.
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Marc Guberti has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, PayPal, and Shopify. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: short December 2026 $62.50 calls on PayPal. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.