The artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem was rocked recently by news that Chinese start-up DeepSeek had developed a cost-effective and competent large language model on the cheap. That revelation called into question the tens of billions of dollars that are being poured into the buildout of AI infrastructure,

Countless companies stand to benefit from AI, but these stocks have AI and automation as a central part of their businesses.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been the hottest sector on Wall Street for more than two years. First up is IonQ (NYSE: IONQ). As of this writing, shares of IonQ are up more than 275% over the past 12 months.

C3.ai is capturing strong demand for commercial AI solutions with tools to improve productivity and operational efficiency. BigBear.ai has carved out a niche supporting mission-critical intelligence for the defense sector while moving forward with a unique focus on vision-enabled AI.