(NASDAQ: MSFT) captivated Wall Street for several quarters now, with its stock up 41% over the last 12 months. While some of its peers  suffered from macroeconomic headwinds, the Windows company reported solid growth and continued to beat analysts' expectations. Meanwhile, Microsoft rallied investors with an expanding position in artificial intelligence (AI).

In fact, Microsoft overtook Apple as the world's most valuable company, with a market cap of $3 trillion.

Potent brands like Windows, Office, Xbox, LinkedIn, and Azure made Microsoft a tech behemoth. Its stock climbed 219% in the last five years alone, likely creating many millionaires along the way. However, the company could potentially beat that growth over the next half-decade as AI bolsters its cloud division, productivity software business, and even its personal computing segment.

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Source Fool.com