Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT ) and Octa (NASDAQ: OKTA ) These are two of the best stocks to buy and hold for the next decade. They leverage amazing artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of pick-and-shovel plays, but their other non-AI-oriented businesses offer enough diversity to stabilize them.
None of these stocks are cheap, because the smart money already sees their potential. However, there is still an opportunity to buy into these companies before the AI cash arrives.
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Caterpillar benefits from AI enhancements in two ways. Its construction equipment is required to build data centers. Meanwhile, the company’s power and energy segment is growing, as it helps data centers meet their redundant power needs by supplying turbines and large reciprocating engines.
The company reported a record $67.6 billion in revenue, up 4%, in its 100th year in 2025, thanks mainly to growing appliance sales. The company operates in three segments, but its power and energy segment, which includes natural gas generators and battery storage, saw sales of $9.4 billion in the fourth quarter, up 23% year over year.
A downside was that full-year profit per share fell 14.6% to $18.81, mainly due to higher growth costs, including tariffs.
This year looks promising as Caterpillar reported a record backlog of $51.2 billion in the fourth quarter. On January 28, it announced an agreement with US Intelligence and Power to provide 2 gigawatts of power to AIP’s Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia by 2027 by supplying natural gas generators and battery storage.
Another major growth area for Caterpillar is autonomous vehicles, particularly self-driving trucks. These vehicles work well in hazardous environments such as mines. Caterpillar also makes autonomous excavators, dozers and loaders to help construction companies deal with a shortage of skilled workers.
The company’s stock is up nearly 119% over the past year and more than 35% so far this year. It is trading at around 41 times earnings and 34 times forward earnings. While that seems high for an old-school industrial stock, it’s a bargain for a company with a lot of AI exposure.
There’s also the matter of its dividend, which Caterpillar has raised for 32 consecutive years, including a 7% bump to $1.51 per quarterly share in 2025.
