Starboard Worth’s Jeff Smith known as synthetic intelligence a key technological advance much like the web, and mentioned many corporations will profit from the megatrend. “AI is a gigantic alternative,” Smith mentioned Tuesday on CNBC’s ” Squawk on the Road .” “There’s been a number of know-how developments during the last 20 plus years which have been capable of do issues like that. The web was one to start out with … perhaps you speak about cryptocurrency blockchain and then you definitely would possibly speak about AI.” AI has been dominating headlines this yr, making a shopping for frenzy on Wall Road that pushed chipmaker Nvidia over a $1 trillion market cap. Buzzy chatbot ChatGPT, able to taking written inputs from customers and producing a human-like response, was an instantaneous phenomenon globally, turning into the fastest-growing software program in historical past. “I do imagine that know-how will proceed to advance,” Smith mentioned. “I imagine it would do two issues. It should make corporations extra environment friendly. It should additionally improve demand for merchandise for the businesses that do it proper.” Smith mentioned AI is an “monumental alternative” for Salesforce , the software program firm that he took an activist stake in in 2022. Shares of Salesforce have rallied greater than 70% this yr. “What they’ve finished is fairly dramatic. I imply, they’ve raised their their margins by 800 foundation factors. Income progress did sluggish slightly bit, which was anticipated,” Smith mentioned of Salesforce. The hedge fund supervisor mentioned there’s extra room for Salesforce to develop and the inventory can rally one other 30%. “We expect it is most likely $15 a share in free money move within the subsequent couple of years. We expect meaning the inventory must be over $300 a share. It is nonetheless undervalued,” Smith mentioned. “There’s nonetheless extra to be finished and I believe they’d agree.” Smith mentioned he is additionally bullish on software program identify Splunk , which he mentioned is barely behind Salesforce when it comes to execution. “It is a related alternative as an organization that was not targeted on revenue margins, however as an alternative simply targeted on progress and now they’re targeted on a stability of income progress and profitability,” Smith mentioned. “With that focus, we really assume that they’ll nearly double their free money move per share within the subsequent couple of years.” Shares of Splunk have risen greater than 20% this yr. Smith spun his New York-based hedge fund out of funding agency Ramius in 2011.