A few weeks ago, we posted a video about Recursion, an AI drug discovery stock that we have liked for quite some time. One of the really interesting things about this company is that it uses computer vision to identify subtle changes in cellular morphology that may indicate a disease state or drug effect. While Recursion is bringing in some revenue from collaborative agreements with big pharma companies, we’re sitting on the sidelines until its platform hits paydirt with a commercialized AI-generated drug. We could be waiting for quite some time; its leading candidates are all still in phase 2 clinical trials.
Indeed, we’ve been sitting on the sidelines for a while when it comes to investing in computer vision stocks. Once upon a time, we wrote a ton of content on computer vision startups, from facial recognition and security to recycling robots and retail. Yet it’s difficult to find reliable data on the total market opportunity for computer vision. One estimate that appears to rely on Statista and alternative data sources claims that object recognition and facial recognition will grow to $31 billion by 2030 (inexplicably, the chart below includes speech recognition for a total of $47 billion by the end of the decade).