As of April 15, 2026, there were 47 exchange-traded funds with names that featured the terms \u201cAI\u201d or \u201cartificial intelligence,\u201d or to which Morningstar had assigned its \u201cArtificial Intelligence\u201d thematic tag.<\/p>\n
Some of those ETFs are plays on the large-language models themselves, others on the infrastructure, hardware, and data that make the chatbots and agents go. Still other ETFs leverage AI to pick securities. Here\u2019s the list of the 47 AI-related ETFs I assembled:<\/p>\n
The average AI-themed ETF is around three years old, the oldest being the Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ<\/a>; 9\/12\/2016 inception date), the youngest the AI Data Center REIT & Infrastructure ETF (RCKZ; 4\/14\/2026). Most AI-themed ETFs have come along since 2022.<\/p>\n Even though they\u2019re fairly new, these ETFs have been popular with investors. Collectively, they recently held around $25 billion in net assets, thanks to strong demand: As a group, the ETFs hauled in more than $10.0 billion in net flows over the past 12 months, $7.7 billion over the second half of last year alone. All told, they\u2019ve gathered a cumulative $19 billion of net inflows since the first debuted in 2016.<\/p>\n Performance: It\u2019s Complicated<\/p>\n How have these ETFs performed? It\u2019s been mixed. On the plus side, the average AI-themed ETF has topped the S&P since 2016. But that hasn\u2019t been good enough to beat the Nasdaq 100 Index over that span.<\/p>\n That average return also masks significant variation in the performance of the underlying AI-themed ETFs. To illustrate, here is the difference in rolling one-year returns between AI ETFs at the 25th and 75th percentiles.<\/p>\n There was a 17-percentage-point difference between the haves and have-nots in the average one-year period, a gap big enough to drive a truck through. That dispersion is about 3 times wider than the return difference you\u2019d find among large-blend funds and even exceeds that of funds assigned to Morningstar\u2019s \u201ctechnology\u201d fund peer group.<\/p>\n Parsing \u2018AI-Themed\u2019<\/p>\n What\u2019s given rise to these wide performance disparities? Though most of these ETFs fly under the same AI banner or invest in resources and capabilities that are central or at least adjacent to the technology, they aren\u2019t monolithic.<\/p>\n For instance, take the largest AI-themed ETF by net assets, Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology (AIQ<\/a>). That ETF spreads its assets across more than 80 stocks and thus doesn\u2019t concentrate too much in its top names. Contrast that with TrueShares Tech, AI, and Deep Learning ETF, which holds only 20 or so stocks and, as such, loads up on its top picks, which have routinely soaked up two-thirds or more of the portfolio.<\/p>\n Those differences appear to explain the large gap between the two ETFs\u2019 returns since August 2022, which has seen the Global X ETF gain around 20% per year versus only 9% annually for the TrueShares ETF.<\/p>\n The Global X ETF hit pay dirt with names like Netflix, SK Hynix, and Samsung, none of which the TrueShares ETF held during this period, and avoided trouble in reeling stocks like Figma, Relay Therapeutics, and Prime Medicine, all of which figured into the TrueShares portfolio at various points along the way.<\/p>\n The point isn\u2019t to dwell on what might have gone right or wrong for a pair of ETFs that share a similar name but rather to note these differences matter. And judging from the correlation of each AI-themed ETF\u2019s returns to the return of the average fund, it appears those differences are fairly widespread.<\/p>\n TakeawaysYou Don\u2019t Need This<\/p>\n I probably should have led with this, but I don\u2019t see a compelling reason for anyone to go out of their way to invest in a thematic strategy like AI ETFs. And the reason is simple: If you\u2019re investing in a diversified portfolio like an index fund, you\u2019re probably already participating in that theme, and all others for that matter. Anything beyond that is likely to be redundant and pile on extra risk you don\u2019t need.<\/p>\n Careful What You Wish For<\/p>\n To those who would say, \u201cYeah, but I want to dial up my exposure to the theme,\u201d I would ask: What makes you think it\u2019s not already priced in? A rule of thumb I use is to assume that by the time an emerging technology, concept, or theme has reached my attention, it\u2019s thoroughly mainstream. Kind of the investing equivalent of the Groucho Marx quip, \u201cI refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve already written<\/a> about the yawning gap between the return of the average dollar invested in thematic ETFs and those ETFs\u2019 aggregate returns. What caused such a wide gap to open between the two? Inopportunely timed purchases and sales by investors, who too often bought high and sold low.<\/p>\n End of Story?<\/p>\n Themes are all about a story that\u2019s still in the process of unfolding. In the case of AI, it\u2019s a mass-consumer adoption and build-out story in which the technology is said to herald a new era of unheard-of innovation and productivity. That\u2019s stirring, for sure. But have you worked out how, when, or how that story might end? You can\u2019t reasonably be expected to have figured that out\u2014the heads of the frontier AI labs aren\u2019t even sure how it\u2019ll end. Which makes it all the more important to have evaluated what fundamental change in the theme-based strategy you\u2019re considering would trigger you to cut or sell the stake outright.<\/p>\n Know What You\u2019re Buying<\/p>\n That\u2019s a good segue to this\u2014you\u2019re not buying a narrative, you\u2019re buying a stake in businesses that will generate cash flows in the future. The timing and magnitude of those cash flows, we don\u2019t know. The price other investors will be willing to pay for that stream of cash flows is even less certain. Also, that basket of stocks could change in the future depending on how the theme-based strategy concerned works. The price that the portfolio fetches today reflects the market\u2019s collective assessment of those stocks\u2019 worth. What is your view? Why do you expect those stocks to appreciate? What\u2019s the fundamental explanation for that appreciation? What does the market have wrong?<\/p>\n Get Your Hands Dirty<\/p>\n Even if you get all the way to the end\u2014you\u2019re undeterred by the portfolio overlap, you think you got in early, you\u2019ve worked out a scenario in which you\u2019ll sell, you\u2019ve formed a sturdy fundamental thesis for why it\u2019s a worthwhile investment, you just think I need to lighten up\u2014you\u2019ve still got to drill down to figure out what makes a strategy tick and how that differs from competing options. As this article underscores, those details\u2014what qualifies as \u201cAI,\u201d how many investments the ETF holds, how it weights those stocks, how long it holds them, when and why it might sell them, what it might replace them with\u2014can matter a great deal. But given the sheer multitude of these vehicles and the various ways they operate, you might need a large language model to keep it all straight.<\/p>\n Switched On<\/p>\n Here are other things I\u2019m reading, writing, or listening to:<\/p>\n Remembering Mark Mobius<\/a>Morningstar\u2019s annual \u201cdiversification landscape\u201d<\/a> paper is out\u201cThe Accidental Star Manager\u201dThe Both<\/a> (Self-titled)I guess I\u2019m what you call an \u201cElla fella\u201d<\/a>Don\u2019t Be a Stranger<\/p>\n I love hearing from you. Have some feedback? An angle for an article? Email me at jeffrey.ptak@morningstar.com. If you\u2019re so inclined, you can also follow me on Twitter\/X at @syouth1<\/a>, and I do some odds-and-ends writing on a Substack called Basis Pointing<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As of April 15, 2026, there were 47 exchange-traded funds with names that featured the terms \u201cAI\u201d or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-410739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}