Jim Cramer says these 3 mistakes are keeping investors out of AI winners

His comments come as shares of Snowflake surged roughly 36% Thursday after the software company reported strong results and highlighted a $6 billion commitment to Amazon Web Services. The “Mad Money” host argued many investors likely weren’t able to catch much of the move.

Cramer pointed to three reasons why.

First, he said many investors have become too dependent on index funds and exchange-traded funds, leaving them unable to benefit from outsized moves in individual stocks.

“We’re all told that we’re only supposed to buy index funds and ETFs,” he said. “You aren’t getting Snowflake with that policy.” To be sure, Cramer isn’t opposed to index funds; he’s long recommended investors put their first $10,000 into a low-cost index fund tracking the broader market, before advancing to owning single stocks.

Cramer also said investors often dismiss opportunities because the investment thesis feels “too obvious.” If one software company can find the right AI strategy, he argued, investors should be asking whether others — including Salesforce, Oracle and Microsoft — could benefit as well.

Finally, Cramer said many investors remain too scarred by the collapse of internet stocks in 2000 to fully embrace today’s AI rally.

“Because of those 14 and a half months, we’ve been scared away from some of the most incredible opportunities with real companies that are making fortunes,” he said.

Unlike many of the speculative internet companies of the late 1990s, Cramer believes today’s AI leaders are largely profitable businesses generating substantial earnings and cash flow.

“All of these memory and storage companies are just crushing it,” he said, pointing to Micron, Seagate, Sandisk and Western Digital.

Cramer said investors still waiting for the AI rally to unravel may be overlooking one of the market’s biggest opportunities.

“This market’s different and we’re much further from the end of the AI data center boom…than the bears would have you believe,” he said. “That means we likely do have more room to run.”