The Fool's Guide to AI-Era Tech Investing: Inside Janus Henderson's Strategic Framework

In recent conversations with leading investment professionals, the Motley Fool explored how technology investors are navigating what may be one of the most profound shifts in market history. Denny Fish, portfolio manager for the Janus Henderson Global Technology and Innovation Fund and head of the firm’s technology sector research, shared insights from deep industry engagement and on-the-ground observations. His perspective reveals why practitioners in the field see technology investing very differently than the noise often heard on Wall Street.

The technology market has entered a phase where doing the homework matters more than ever. Rather than relying on headlines, Fish emphasized the importance of talking directly with industry participants, CEOs, and decision-makers. Recently, his entire team gathered in Arizona for the UBS tech conference, where they met with the who’s who of technology. The takeaway was unmistakable: the momentum in technology, particularly around artificial intelligence infrastructure, shows no signs of slowing.

From Semiconductor Backbone to Autonomous Revolution: Mapping AI’s Economic Reach

The foundation of today’s technology boom rests on what Janus Henderson calls “enablers”—the companies and infrastructure layers that make AI possible. These aren’t just semiconductor producers. The enablers category includes GPU manufacturers, ASIC designers, foundry operations, semiconductor equipment suppliers, power producers, and data center infrastructure providers. It spans across technology, energy, and industrials sectors. Think of enablers as the picks and shovels of the AI infrastructure boom.

Nvidia stands out as perhaps the most visible beneficiary in this layer. At CES, Nvidia’s leadership outlined how their latest GPU architectures—Blackwell and the upcoming Vera Rubin—continue to extend what’s known as scaling laws while simultaneously driving down the cost of inference. This dual benefit of increased capability and reduced costs creates a compelling narrative for investors. Yet what often gets overlooked is Nvidia’s broader innovation portfolio. The company reinvests substantial cash into robotics, autonomous driving research, and strategic investments in complementary companies like Groq, demonstrating strategic depth beyond the GPU narrative.

Meanwhile, TSMC remains the critical chokepoint. As Fish noted, regardless of which companies win in the broader AI competition—whether it’s Broadcom, Nvidia, AMD, or others—all roads lead through Taiwan, and increasingly through Phoenix with its planned manufacturing expansion. TSMC’s competitive moat appears difficult, if not impossible, for competitors to replicate given the capital requirements and technical expertise involved.

The Enablers, Enhancers, and End Users: A Strategic Framework for AI Investments

Janus Henderson developed a three-tier framework to categorize companies based on their relationship to AI deployment. Beyond enablers lies a second category: enhancers. These are companies that possessed strong business fundamentals before AI arrived, and where artificial intelligence serves to strengthen their existing propositions rather than transform them.

Software companies represent a prime example of enhancers. Consider enterprises with robust data moats and applications deeply embedded in customer workflows. These businesses can integrate AI capabilities to enhance customer value without fundamental business model changes. Similarly, consumer internet companies with compelling user engagement models stand to gain efficiency improvements and stronger operational capabilities through AI integration.

The pandemic for software stocks has been real. After three years of underperformance relative to semiconductor and infrastructure companies, software faced headwinds from decelerating revenue growth paired with persistent disruption fears from both horizontal and vertical AI applications. Yet this extended pullback creates a compelling opportunity for investors willing to identify which software businesses will thrive on the other side of this transition.

The third category comprises end users—companies across healthcare, financial services, agriculture, insurance, and other industries that are market leaders in their respective domains. These firms stand to extend competitive advantages through aggressive AI deployment. The dual benefit comes from both cost reduction and revenue acceleration. Market leaders with resources to invest early typically create moats that become increasingly difficult to overcome.

CES 2026 and the Convergence of Physical and Digital AI

The Consumer Electronics Show increasingly resembles an artificial intelligence conference with automotive components. While digital AI—exemplified by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google’s Gemini—captures headlines, the physical manifestation of AI through robotics, humanoids, and autonomous systems represents an equally profound shift.

Autonomous vehicles illustrate this convergence perfectly. From San Francisco to London, real-world deployment is advancing rapidly. Waymo’s San Francisco operations have matured to the point where many users have abandoned traditional ride-sharing altogether. Tesla’s Full Self-Driving initiative continues evolving, though observers note Waymo maintains a technical lead partly due to different approaches to machine vision and mapping. Meanwhile, Wayve—backed by SoftBank, Microsoft, and Nvidia—recently demonstrated capabilities in London’s notoriously challenging driving conditions, completing 45-minute urban navigation without driver intervention.

These developments matter because they signal where capital allocation should flow. Companies with massive physical footprints, like Amazon, stand to benefit enormously from autonomous systems and robotic automation across their fulfillment and distribution networks. As Fish observed, companies like Amazon have built infrastructure that rivals possess would struggle to replicate. When coupled with their demonstrated ability to reinvest incremental margin improvements back into business enhancement, the compounding effect of AI-driven efficiency becomes formidable.

Market Bifurcation: Why Diversification Requires Nuance

The past three years taught investors a harsh lesson: a rising tide does not necessarily lift all boats. Success required positioning on the “right side” of AI or the consequences were severe. The semiconductor and AI infrastructure ecosystem delivered impressive fundamentals and earnings growth, yet many of these stocks rose more on earnings expansion than multiple expansion, making them potentially more reasonably valued than perceived.

This theme extends beyond semiconductors. Within the mega-cap technology tier, Janus Henderson observed marked divergence. Google suffered early 2025 as investors questioned its search business and secular positioning. Meta emerged as “the golden child” with its Llama initiative. By year’s end, the script flipped—Meta stumbled while Google accelerated forward with Gemini. Expect such dispersion to intensify throughout 2026 and beyond.

This environment requires portfolio construction that reflects both the structural opportunity and the competitive dynamics at play. The mega-cap technology companies will likely continue posting strong earnings growth, yet investor returns will vary significantly based on execution and strategic positioning.

Building Resilient Portfolios: Balancing Tomorrow’s Winners with Today’s Leaders

Janus Henderson employs a philosophy called “resilience and optionality” to structure investment positions. The core approach targets allocating 50-60% of the portfolio to what Fish calls “resilient” holdings. These represent companies the firm could confidently own for five years, though circumstances might change. What qualifies as resilient? Companies where the range of outcomes isn’t narrow but isn’t excessively wide either, where expected returns remain attractive, and where management demonstrates genuine innovation credentials.

TSMC exemplifies this resilient category. Regardless of the broader competitive landscape, TSMC’s role as the essential manufacturing partner for the semiconductor industry appears structurally sound for extended periods.

The remaining portfolio allocation targets “tomorrow’s winners”—smaller companies with wider outcome ranges but meaningful upside potential. These positions intentionally run smaller because the probability of being wrong is higher. Yet the strategic bet is that enough of these smaller positions will graduate into resilient holdings over time, creating meaningful portfolio impacts.

The Fool’s Perspective: Data-Driven Conviction in Tech Investing

For investors skeptical of technology’s continued dominance, practitioners within the field offer clear guidance: engage with the companies, speak with the executives, and follow the data. The noise from Wall Street often obscures rather than illuminates. After 20 years where the most important decision was maintaining technology overweight positioning, the structural dynamics supporting continued technology importance remain intact. Cloud, social, and mobile established the infrastructure for AI. Now artificial intelligence amplifies those advantages while extending them into robotics, autonomous systems, and enterprise transformation.

The coming years will likely reward investors who distinguish between temporary leadership shifts among mega-cap tech companies and the more durable structural trends reshaping economic productivity. That distinction requires exactly the kind of practitioner engagement and framework-based thinking that defined this conversation—precisely the approach that guides investment decisions at firms like Janus Henderson and resonates with the Fool’s investment philosophy.