Considering how well artificial intelligence (AI) stocks have done over the past two years, it's hard to imagine some of them going even higher. However, this industry still has significant tailwinds as we have barely scratched the surface of what is possible with AI.

Two hot stocks in this sector are Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) and SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN). Palantir's shares had surged by more than 300% over the prior 12 months, while SoundHound had skyrocketed by 600%.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm and captured people's attention with its transformative potential. The debut of Open AI's ChatGPT showed the world what is possible, and more businesses are looking for ways to incorporate AI to streamline and make their businesses more efficient.

The second unstoppable Ai stock that can be bought hand over first in the new year is China-based Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA).

After AI had its "iPhone moment" with the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, leading stocks in the space have seen phenomenal returns. For example, NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) gained 239% in 2023 and 171% in 2024.

Having said that, if I were to choose just one stock to invest in AI, it would have to be Amazon ( AMZN -0.32%). It offers an excellent combination of growth potential and safety, and there's a solid case to be made that it is the most attractively valued of the megacap tech stocks right now.

With some of the biggest AI players going all-in on this technology, it might make existing AI powerhouses, like Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR), a bit nervous. Palantir emerged as one of the best pure-play AI investments in 2024.