You can't win them all. Case in point: One analyst stayed out of Tesla (TSLA) during its latest stock rally, but she now says Elon Musk’s emerging vision for the company might make her revisit that move.

“I think Elon Musk has proven himself to be a chess master over time,” Threadneedle Strategies Founder Ann Berry told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “He takes a very long-term view.”

Speaking from the benefit of hindsight, Berry said she had newfound optimism about Tesla and Musk's strategy after a two-week-long rally, during which Tesla's shares rose 12%. It has sunk since Wednesday after some on Wall Street argued for caution about an over-hyped AI run-up.

But Berry thinks that there's long-term hope in Tesla's move into AI and data collection, particularly because recent announcements will allow the company to get a good look at how its competitors' EVs work.

She explained that Tesla’s recent partnerships with Ford (F), GM (GM), and Rivian (RIVN) to allow their EVs to use Tesla’s Supercharger Network will enable the company to amass “clean, usable data” about EV use on a larger scale than any competitor.

For now, Berry said she is sticking with investments like Ford and GM because of the car makers' cash on hand and clear business plans. But that doesn't mean she isn't thinking about what Tesla's latest moves mean.

“All these cars backing up at a Tesla charging point, which means Tesla is now going to sit there above the fray gathering data, the most data in the United States on where EVs are charging, when, with what frequency, by model of cars… I think this is a data play,” Berry said.

Having strong data collection, she said, is a requisite for any company trying to become part of the AI wave. It's something that she has found to be a positive sign for Tesla.

“I do think the winners of AI are the winners in gathering huge amounts of clean usable data,” Berry said.

Tesla, led by CEO Elon Musk, has long focused on developing AI as part of the firm's self-driving Autopilot software. The company has also launched high-performance Dojo hardware, which can train Tesla’s AI on videos filmed by the vehicles. (That said, Tesla’s use of data collection and AI is far from perfect: The Autopilot technology has been involved in hundreds of crashes.)

For now, Berry said she “missed the boat” on the Tesla hype because she avoided “big vision” stocks for the difficulty of estimating their valuation. But her calculus could change if Musk continues to execute on successful, relationship-building projects such as the Supercharger Network partnerships.

“This is a moment where you're looking at AI and saying, ‘Actually, who's got the vision and who's going to win at scale?’” she said of her investing strategy moving forward.

Jared Mitovich is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @jmitovich

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