5 AI Stocks to Watch

Last year was dominated by generative AI, which has already transformed a range of fields. The technology’s explosive growth is widely tipped to continue into 2024. Here is a collection of AI stocks to keep an eye on as the year progresses.

• Nvidia’s share price hits an all-time high as it unveils its latest AI offerings at the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas.
• UiPath has appointed a former Google Cloud Vice President to its board of directors, calling her AI expertise “invaluable”.
• Appian CEO Matt Calkins believes AI fears are overblown.

Nvidia

The AI Gaming Avatar Stock

Nvidia’s [NVDA] shares reached an all-time high of $553.46 last week, as the chipmaker presented its latest AI offerings at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Among the announcements were microservices for its Avatar Cloud Engine, or ACE, which allows game developers to integrate generative AI models into digital avatars. One of these microservices is Audio2Face, which can create facial animation for game characters from text-to-speech audio.

Advanced Micro Devices

The AI Hardware Stock

Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] unveiled a major upgrade for its Ryzen 8000G chip series at the CES technology trade show, including the Ryzen 7 8700G, which, it claims, boasts “the world’s most powerful built-in graphics”. “AMD continues to lead the AI hardware revolution by offering the broadest portfolio of processors with dedicated AI engines in the x86 market,” commented Jack Huynh, Senior Vice President and General Manager for AMD’s computing and graphics group. The AMD share price is down 0.6% since the start of the year.

UiPath

The Leadership Restructuring Stock

UiPath [PATH] announced a major leadership change on 10 January: Co-CEO Rob Enslin and tech veteran June Yang — former Vice President of Cloud AI and Industry Solutions at Google [GOOGL] Cloud — have been appointed to its board of directors. “Rob’s strong track record of driving long-term value creation at UiPath and June’s expertise in AI, cloud, and related technologies will be invaluable,” said Co-CEO Daniel Dines in a press release. The UiPath share price is down 10.7% since the start of the year, having recorded a 52-week high in December.

C3 AI

The Enterprise AI Stock

C3 AI’s [AI] revenue increased 17% year-over-year in Q2 2024, while subscription revenue was up 12%. “C3 AI has done a phenomenal job of marketing themselves as an AI company … they will do a great job of implementing AI into business processes,” Gene Munster, Managing Partner at Deepwater Asset Management, told CNBC following the earnings on 6 December. However, Munster doesn’t consider the stock to be one of the “building blocks” of AI that he looks to invest in, because it’s “not in the same class” as names like Nvidia and Microsoft [MSFT]. The C3 AI share price is down 8.7% since the start of the year.

Appian

The AI Discourse Stock

Appian [APPN] CEO Matt Calkins told Yahoo Finance at the end of December that fears around AI are overblown. Nevertheless, while 2023 was dominated by companies becoming AI leaders by saying “the most hyperbolic things”, the “conversation will shift” this year to a focus on “what you’ve accomplished, what you can actually deliver [and] the value you’ve created,” Calkins added. The Appian share price is down 10.5% since the start of the year.

Another Way to Invest in AI

The Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF

The Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF [BOTZ] holds Nvidia, UiPath, C3 AI and Appian as of 12 January. As of 31 December, information technology had a 47.9% weighting, while industrials and healthcare had been assigned 34.5% and 14.7%. Financials, consumer discretionary and energy all had single-digit allocations. The fund is up 28.3% in the past year through 15 January.

The Vanguard Information Technology ETF [VGT] holds Nvidia and AMD as of 30 September. As of 30 November, systems software and technology hardware account for 26.6% and 23.9% of the portfolio respectively, while semiconductors and application software have allocations of 17.9% and 14.8% respectively. The fund is up 44.6% in the past year.