If 2024 was a breakout year for artificial intelligence—including major developments in autonomous vehicles, a broad expansion of generative AI applications across industries, and much more—2025 has the potential to be even bigger. In the first weeks of the year, President Trump announced the Stargate initiative in partnership with OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) to invest up to $500 billion in developing infrastructure related to AI. Demand for—and interest in—AI continues to surge.

Investors thus face a difficult choice. The AI space is burgeoning, and the list of key players is continuing to shift. Besides legacy tech giants that have a huge leg up in developing and unrolling AI platforms, much smaller up-and-coming firms are jostling for dominance in new corners of the market. It may be the case that these smaller firms have more upside potential than major tech operations like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), which already has a market capitalization quickly approaching $3.5 trillion.

Though there are no guarantees while the industry continues to develop, one noteworthy small-cap AI company to keep in mind is Rezolve AI Ltd. (NASDAQ: RZLV), a British firm offering an AI-based commerce and engagement platform. With a market capitalization of just $525 million as of January 23, 2025, Rezolve is just a fraction of the size of many of the larger names in AI. However, the company's ambitions are grand—its products aim to upend the $30-trillion retail industry.

Broadly Applicable and Versatile Platform

Rezolve's primary product offering is the Brain Suite, a set of AI-based tools for retailers to optimize shopping experiences for their customers. These applications facilitate everything from customer activation to AI-based sales assistants to simplified payment and checkout systems to customer retention and lifecycle management.

A compelling aspect of Brain Suite is its versatility, with integration possible for retailers of all kinds. It is customizable and easily scalable, making Brain Suite an attractive prospect for potential customers regardless of size. Additionally, Rezolve's large language model, Brainpowa, has a history of outperforming baseline models, including GPT-4 by OpenAI in 2023 on most tasks.

High-Profile Partnerships

In the final months of 2024, Rezolve inked high-profile agreements with both Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). Through these partnerships, Google will resell Rezolve's Brain Suite as part of its Google Cloud offering. Rezolve said it expects the Google partnership to drive over 50% of its forecasted revenues in the coming years. The partnership with Microsoft is similar, with Brain Suite set to be distributed through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.

Though these are the most notable partnerships Rezolve has entered into in recent months, they are not the only ones. The company also launched an initiative with the stablecoin Tether in an effort to facilitate seamless cryptocurrency payments for retailers. In early January 2025, Rezolve announced an agreement with European fashion retailer Shoeby to strengthen the latter's digital retail presence, among other goals.

Rezolve's momentum seems likely to carry into the new year, particularly given the boost in visibility that the agreements with Google and Microsoft offer.

What the Future Holds

Rezolve was pre-revenue as of the end of 2024, so indeed, much of the recent excitement around this company is somewhat speculative. However, the firm has a target of a $100 million annual revenue run rate by the end of 2025. It is likely that the impact of the Google and Microsoft partnerships will not fully reveal itself for some time; investors should watch to see how Rezolve's customer list grows thanks to the impact of those two tech giants.

In the meantime, Rezolve has taken steps to strengthen its financial position, including converting variable-rate convertible loans of approximately $59 million before the end of 2024. The company also asserted its confidence in its share price being undervalued by accepting only $15 million in equity investments.

Rezolve is rated a Strong Buy by seven Wall Street analysts with a consensus price target of $6.40, or 114% above current price levels as of January 24, 2025. This is after the share price has fallen by almost 73% in the last year, potentially presenting an opportunity to buy on the dip.