4 Recession-Proof Stocks That Are Totally AI-PROOF

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1:16Troy Millings:I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor.

1:21Rashad Bilal:But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it, all I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ego Woda is your host for the 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards, live at South by Southwest. Hello, is anybody there? Raised by a single mom, Ego may have a few father-related issues.

2:02Rashad Bilal:Are we supposed to talk about your dad? Her podcast, Thanks Dad, is full of funny, heartfelt conversations with actors, including fellow SNL alums, comedians, musicians, and more, about life and their wonderfully complicated relationships with their fathers. I think and hope that's a good thing. Get to know Ego. Follow Thanks Dad with Ego Wodum and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. Let's talk about four AI-approved stocks to invest in. And I actually saw something today. Well, I'll let you say your four.

2:31Troy Millings:What's the four AI stocks? Go ahead, bro.

2:36Rashad Bilal:They were talking about Walmart. They were talking about, you know, I think Walmart's up 14 % this year.

2:40Troy Millings:Walmart cooking.

2:42Rashad Bilal:Procter and Gamble. There's a few of those type of consumer staples stocks. And the theory is that AI, everybody's scared of an AI bubble. Everybody's scared that artificial intelligence is overpriced and it's just too much. So in times of uncertainty, you go back to what you know. Everybody knows Walmart. Everybody knows you got to use toothpaste. Everybody knows you got to use life essentials a lot of the other stuff is just hypothetical could potentially happen robotics could potentially be a hundred million humanoid robots who knows but i think that you know if you look at those stocks they're outperforming the mag 7 for the year and they're outperforming the market overall for the year um those consumer staple type of stocks so those those stocks have done well and i think it's a direct correlation to people being nervous about artificial intelligence

3:38Troy Millings:absolutely all right you want to go in yeah um as mentioned you mentioned walmart is number one on my list yeah from a technological standpoint when their profit margins are low their competitor amazon walmart does not get looked at as a technical logical behemoth but over the last 10 years they've done an incredibly um great job at reinvesting there so walmart for me is number one. Amgen is number two. Eli Lilly is number three. And Lowe's is number four. If I have to take away all tech facing, Walmart is one for sure. Amgen and Lilly, it's like having Kobe and Jordan on the same team. Like now you got to pick your poison.

4:23Troy Millings:And then Lowe's doesn't get talked about enough in that space for how well they're managing their company and managing margins and continuing to innovate so those are the four i would lean on if i couldn't look if i was worried about an ai bubble or ai disruption those are four that i wouldn't have to worry about for 10 to 20 years that it would be okay all right i appreciate those are i mean that's all i love to hear y 'all opinions first because i'm like damn all right well i'm not gonna say that one i did have walmart as well i think everything that you guys said was dope um i'm gonna go my first one is caterpillar and I know it feels like this is like the AI story because of the energy but prior to it being an AI story it was a strong category leader in the space profitability was clean I mean are we going to stop needing construction equipment anytime soon right if industrials are performing the way they are right now then that means positive signs for a company like Caterpillar so that would be one in mind and I mean you can just see how it's performing in addition to the energy constraints that we have here, how it's performing with that added segment.

5:32Troy Millings:Calipita's been doing great. We had a company on our class the other day, and they gave away a gem. And when I'm going to say it, Ian, I know you're going to have a reaction. I think Monster Energy is one of the ones you got to have. For sure. Quiet, Tyler. No pun intended. When you talk about leader in a category again, profitability clean balance sheets i brought down in my nose uh the recurring demand for energy drinks that's not going anywhere cash flow was good and you look at its return since its inception 56 000 it's performing again well this chart is crazy it's absolutely ridiculous ridiculous the ticker is m n s t monster energy i mean brand partnerships continue to grow uh internationally actually it has a stronghold.

6:24Troy Millings:That is one of the ones that it just, even like I said, like this year, we're still year to date where we are. We're up 11 % when, yeah, I mean, outperforming the Mac seven is, you know, I think only one of them, maybe two of them are positive for the year. And the video is one. So that would be one. And then this is a tricky one. Walmart was there. I had Cloudflare on there because it's AI adjacent, but AI is going to need Cloudfair in a way that, I don't know, it got pulled back a little bit. The software will be needed to help AI, right? It was a business prior to it, and we watched that run up when it was$85.

7:09Troy Millings:We were talking about this company. Got up to$145 and ran past that as well. But when I talk about Cloudfair from a security standpoint, people are like, well, what does it do? i'm like you know when you try to log into a site and it asks you like pick out the the three bicycles yeah to authenticate your actual human that's cloudflare or when you got the puzzle piece that you got to slide over to make them match it yeah and match it right like ai can't do that just yet right so you still need the human piece to do that to all uh authentic authenticate the person that is doing the transaction. CloudFare does that.

7:49Troy Millings:As we get more in depth into AI and we see like, how are we going to authenticate actual human interaction? I think it plays a major role in that. I would put that in there. And obviously I have Walmarters for it. So that would be mine. Yeah. And to the person in chat who asked how these are AI proof stocks. So if we are going into an AI bubble or AI disruption, These are the companies that are safe from that bubble, not the best I got stocks to invest in. We've covered that endlessly two or three years ago. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor.

8:26Rashad Bilal:But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ego Woda is your host for the 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards, live at South by Southwest. Hello, is anybody there? Raised by a single mom, Ego may have a few father-related issues.

9:07Rashad Bilal:Are we supposed to talk about your dad? Her podcast, Thanks Dad, is full of funny, heartfelt conversations with actors, including fellow SNL alums, comedians, musicians, and more. About life and their wonderfully complicated relationships with their fathers. I think and hope that's a good thing. Get to know Ego. Follow Thanks Dad with Ego Wodum and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. I'm joined by Luke Combs, award-winning country music artist and one of the most authentic voices in music today. The guy that says he's always going to be there and that will do anything to be there is the only guy that's not there.

9:43Rashad Bilal:No matter what, I'm going to prioritize my wife and my children. I dread the conversation with my son. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ready for a different take on Formula One? Look no further than No Grip, a new podcast tackling the culture of motor racing's most coveted series. Join me, Lily Herman, as we dive into the underexplored pockets of F1, including the astrology of the current grid, the story of the sport's most consequential, driver's strike, and plenty of other mishaps, scandals, and sagas that have made Formula One a delightful, decadent gumster fire for more than 75 years.

10:21Rashad Bilal:Listen to No Grip on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the Case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story?

10:40Troy Millings:How did this have been made to fit?

10:41Rashad Bilal:The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Thank you.