Just caught this interesting angle on the Zacks podcast about artificial intelligence stocks under $5 that got me thinking. So there are these two small cap plays in the AI space that nobody's really talking about compared to all the chip and data center hype.

First one is FiscalNote, ticker NOTE. It does policy and regulatory intelligence software - basically helps companies navigate compliance stuff using AI. Market cap around $168 million, trading at less than 3x sales which is wild when you see the big names trading at 10x or higher. They've got analyst coverage too so you can track the Zacks Rank.

Then there's iCAD, much smaller at $52 million market cap. They've got AI software for breast cancer detection and risk assessment used in like 50+ countries. Revenue was $4.2 million last quarter with 86% gross margins. Also trading at a really attractive price-to-sales ratio around 2.7.

What's interesting about both these artificial intelligence stocks under $5 is they're in the software tools space, not the infrastructure side. Like, everyone's obsessed with chip makers and data centers but these are actually building products on top of that infrastructure. The valuation on both is honestly pretty compelling if you believe the AI software story is just getting started. Worth digging into if you're looking for something off the beaten path in this space.