The momentum of the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure segment is in top gear this year. The AI space remains rock solid, supported by an extremely bullish demand scenario. Huge spending on AI infrastructure will dramatically change the world over the next five years in fields such as hyperscale automation, robotics, healthcare, energy, materials, financials and cybersecurity.  

Here, we recommend three mid and small-cap AI infrastructure stocks to strengthen your portfolio in 2026. These are: Innodata Inc. (INOD Quick QuoteINOD - Free Report) , Five9 Inc. (FIVN Quick QuoteFIVN - Free Report) and UiPath Inc. (PATH Quick QuotePATH - Free Report) . Each of our picks currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The chart below shows the price performance of our three picks year to date.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Innodata Inc.

Innodata has established itself as a crucial partner in the AI revolution, providing high-quality data needed to train advanced language models. This mid-cap data engineering service provider for AI applications is expected to benefit from the massive demand for supplying state-of-the-art data engineering to large language model building and maintenance over the long term. 

The long-term growth of INOD’s business model is set to be backed by big techs, other big enterprises, industry-specific demand, federal agencies, public relations and healthcare. One of the most promising aspects of INOD’s strategy is its successful customer diversification efforts.

Innodata has launched a GenAI Test and Evaluation Platform focused on Large Language Model validation and risk benchmarking. The platform, built on NVIDIA Corp.’s (NVDA) NIM microservices, enables testing for hallucination, prompt-level adversaries and reliability scoring. 

With MasterClass as the first customer and a broader rollout planned through a global consulting partner in the second half of 2025, the platform positions Innodata to deepen integration with Big Tech’s next wave of GenAI investment.

INOD is expanding its delivery capabilities to strengthen operational efficiency and maintain a competitive edge in the fast-evolving AI services market. INOD continues to focus on building a stronger delivery framework that supports rising project volume and new customer engagements across major technology clients. By scaling its global operations and enhancing technical delivery, the company aims to manage increasing demand for complex data and AI integration projects.

Innodata has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 42.8% and -6.7%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has improved 3.8% over the past 90 days.

INOD has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 26.6% and 46.6%, respectively, for the next year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next-year earnings has improved 7% over the past seven days.

Five9 Inc.

Contact center software solutions provider Five9 has been benefiting from a rise in subscription revenues supported by traction in Enterprise AI revenues. FIVN provides intelligent cloud software for contact centers in the United States, India and internationally.

FIVN offers a virtual contact center cloud platform that delivers a suite of applications, enabling a broad range of contact center-related customer service, sales, and marketing functions. 

FIVN’s platform comprises interactive virtual agents, agent assistance, workflow automation, workforce engagement management, AI insights, and AI summaries. It allows the management and optimization of customer interactions across voice, chat, email, web, social media, and mobile channels directly or through its application programming interfaces.

FIVN has been benefiting from the growing adoption of AI tools in its call center services, with personalized AI agents emerging as a major growth driver. Five9 introduced its Intelligent CX Platform powered by Five9 Genius AI on the Google Cloud. FIVN also released new Five9 AI agents tailor-made for Google Cloud.  

Ties with big names like Salesforce Inc. (CRM), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), ServiceNow Inc. (NOW), Verint Systems Inc. (VRNT) and Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) helped the company build more tailored AI tools and improve its integration across platforms. This is anticipated to have helped FIVN win new clients and hold on to the existing ones.

Five9 has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 10.1% and 16.6%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has improved 4.3% over the past 90 days.

FIVN has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 9.6% each and 8.5%, respectively, for the next year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next-year earnings has improved 1.3% over the past 90 days.

UiPath Inc.

UiPath provides an end-to-end automation platform that offers a range of robotic process automation solutions primarily in the United States and internationally. PATH offers a suite of interrelated software to build, manage, run, engage, measure, and govern automation within the organization. 

The PATH platform's embedded AI, ML (machine learning), and NLP (Natural Language Processing) capabilities improve decisioning and information processing. PATH introduced new generative AI features, including specialized LLMs (Large Language Model) such as DocPATH and CommPATH, and Context Grounding, to enhance automated AI models for specific business needs.

UiPath has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 10.1% and 22.6%, respectively, for the current year (ending January 2026). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has improved 18.1% over the past 60 days.

PATH has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 8.1% and 11.3%, respectively, for the next year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for next-year earnings has improved 18% over the past 60 days.