In 1950, Alan Turing, famed British codebreaker and creator of one of the world’s first computing machines pondered the question “Can machines think?” His paper entitled Computing Machinery and Intelligence introduced the Turing Test as a measure of machine intelligence. When humans ask the same questions of a machine and another human without being able to distinguish the two, the machine can be considered intelligent.
Skeptical investors growing impatient waiting for the Internet of Me and the Internet of Things to achieve “next big thing status” have only to look at the intense interest in AI everywhere, propelled to a fever pitch on 30 November of 2022 with the launch of an early demo of ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is capable of communicating in a human-like way, beginning with human-provided databases of sample conversations, fine-tuned through reinforcement leaning.
Artificial intelligence technology is complex, but for the layperson, here is a serviceable definition:
the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.
That definition opens the door for applications of AI in virtually every form of human endeavors. Early entries of AI companies traded publicly include:
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- companies manufacturing critical components like computer chips,
- companies researching and developing AI applications,
- companies offering support for other companies to power their own operations with AI,
- companies actively adopting AI into their own business models.
While the biggest names in AI stocks can be found in the US, Australia has a selection of companies in the sector operating in core AI technology, and some operating in infrastructure and services enabling AI, along with two exchange traded funds (ETFs) offering exposure to global AI players.
Here are some of the top ASX AI stocks and ETFs right now.
Appen Limited (ASX: APX)
Appen got its start in what is now acknowledged as an early example of AI — speech recognition, language translation, and text classification.
AI applications are powered by “Big Data,” now exploding with increasing computing power speed and storage capabilities. Appen is partnering with some of the world’s biggest tech companies in managing their data as well as providing a broad array of services for companies looking to infuse AI in their own operations.
The company was listed on the ASX in 2015. As 2020 began the Appen share price hit an all-time high before descending into a downward spiral from which it has yet to fully recover.
Year over year the stock price is up 154.6% but in a stunning reversal the stock price cratered in late February and year to date is now down 58.5%. Appen managed to remain profitable in the first two years of the COVID 19 pandemic but succumbed in 2022 and 2023 while significantly cutting its losses in FY 2024.
Appen Financial Performance
Source: ASX 29 July 2025
ChatGPT is a form of generative artificial intelligence, where machines are trained to recognise patterns and make decisions base on huge inputs of data. ChatGPT is now in the hands of average consumers using Microsoft products in the form of their AI tool – CoPilot. Google users can now rely on their AI tool – Gemini. Both are based on Large Language Models (LLM) and require the services of companies like Appen providing data labeling/annotation services. Right now Appen is the largest AI data provider serving the Chinese market.
According to the Appen Full Year 2023 results release, generative AI is forecasted to grow from $40 billion dollars in 2022 to $1.3 trillion in 2032. Appen estimates that new opportunities in generative AI will expand the company’s total addressable market by $4 to $8 billion dollars.
The company’s February release of Full Year 2025 earnings saw the share price drop more than 20%, despite expanding its presence in China and cutting losses by 98%. Google cancelled its contract with Appen. Despite the cancellation, the Wall Street Journal still reports a HOLD recommendation on Appen shares, with one analyst at BUY, one at HOLD, and one at SELL.
***Bigtincan Holdings (ASX: BTH)
Bigtincan, recognized as an early “pure play” AI company on the ASX, , attracted the eye of a global venture capital firm and has been acquired. The company exited the ASX on 23 April of 2025 and continues to operate as a privately held entity.
BrainChip (ASX: BRN)
BrainChip is another example of a high-tech company hitting an all-time high and then crashing to earth. Since listing in 2011 the share price has dropped 10.87%. Enthusiasm over a series of positive announcements of big name companies adopting BrainChip’s including Mercedes Benz and the US Air Force along with a United States patent for its neuromorphic artificial intelligence chips drove the share price to an all-time high at the beginning of the trading year 2022. The global tech sell-off followed, crushing the share price. . Year to date the share price has dropped 47.44%.
Investors fascinated by the potential of the company’s neuromorphic computing AI technology appear to have grown weary of the dearth of financial performance, with minimal revenues and maximum, ever-increasing losses.
BrainChip Holdings Financial Performance
Source: ASX 30 July 2025
The company touts the advantage of its line of Akida AI chips operating on the “edge” of the network in which they are embedded. This means instead of data collected at the source and transmitted to cloud storage for analysis, computations are performed where they are collected. This makes the company’s product line ideal for applications using sensor technology.
In its early days, the idea of a technology that simulates neuron processing in the human brain seemed more than revolutionary, but the financial performance to date suggests the addressable market has yet to be impressed. BrainChip has an impressive list of partnering organizations but the company is facing competition from the likes of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), a mammoth goliath fueling investor fervor for AI chip manufacturers. The company’s latest operational announcement to the market released on 30 July highlighted multiple collaborative relationships with new partnering companies.
AI-Media Technologies (ASX: AIM)
AI-Media Technologies listed on the ASX in September of 2020. Since listing, the share price has dropped 52.9%, but year over year, the share price is up 42.7%.
The company’s core technology is a captioning tool kit powered by AI called “Lexi.” The Lexi cloud-based platform provides recorded captioning, transcription, subtitles, translation, archiving and search, and speech analytics services for its clients.
While not yet profitable, AI-Media is growing revenues and reducing its posted losses.
AI-Media Technologies Financial Performance
Source: ASX 30 July 2025
The company is transitioning its revenue base from lower margin services offerings to higher margin technology services.
NEXTDC (ASX: NXT)
Data Centre designer, developer, and operator NEXTDC has formed a research partnership with LaTrobe University’s Research Centre for Data Analytics and Cognition (CDAC) to explore AI applications to improve data centre operations. In the words of NEXTDC’s Head of Operations Sean Rimas, the vision is to create an ecosystem where predictive maintenance through machine learning – that is, using past data to recognise patterns – would identify anomalies and predict incidents likely to happen in the future – and … stop them before they happen.
Despite expenses eating into profits, NEXTDC has analyst consensus BUY recommendations at yahoo finance Australia, marketscreener.com, and the Wall Street Journal.
Full Year revenue growth of 25% and EBITDA (earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortisation) growth rose 15% were weighted down by 14% increase in capital expenditures.
The company has earned the trust of one of its partners – global leader in AI chip manufacturing Nvidia. NEXTDC data centres have earned the NVIDIA DGX-Ready Data Center certification, for their use in high-power AI environments.
Over the last decade the NXT share price has risen 505.5%. Year over year the share price is down 13.55%
Artificial Intelligence Exchange Traded Funds on the ASX
Investors looking for broader exposure to AI activities have two ETFs to choose from. Both began as automated robotics holdings and expanded their portfolios to include global AI leaders.
Robo (ASX: ROBO) Global Robotics and Automation from Global X leans heavily towards robotics and automation companies. The share price is up 68.64% since listing in 2017. Year over year the share price is up 16.48%.
Distributions going into the tech sell-off that started in 2022 dropped dramatically.
Global Robotics and Automation Distributions
Source: ASX 30 July 2025
Global Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (ASX: RBTZ) from BetaShares lists NVIDIA as its top holding, with a portfolio weight of 9.02%. Since listing in 2018 the share price is up 36%. Year over year the share price is up 23.6%.
Distributions for RBTZ began to fall in the second year of the COVID pandemic and continued in the tech sell-off but rebounded in FY 2024.
Global Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Distributions
Source: ASX 30 July 2025
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ASX Blue Chips Using Artificial Intelligence (AI)
A “backdoor” entry into AI stocks comes from investing in solid ASX companies incorporating AI into their business operations. These include:
- Blood plasma and vaccine provider CSL Limited (ASX: CSL)
- Global logistics solutions providers WiseTech Global (ASX: WTC)
- Accounting software provider Xero (ASX: XRO)
The following graph shows the year-over-year share price performance of the three companies.
Source: ASX 30 July 2025
The daily bombardment of stories of the upside and downside of artificial intelligence in the financial and legacy news outlets coupled with social media posts suggests AI truly is the “next big thing.” Simply put, machines that can “learn” to recognize patterns in massive amounts of data and then provide information and make decisions as a human would are considered intelligent.
Although the majority of news making publicly traded AI companies trade on US exchanges, Aussie investors have options.
First there are companies whose primary focus is on developing and marketing AI technology, either through component manufacturing or AI related services for companies interested in incorporating AI into their business operations.
Next there are exchange traded funds providing access to a mix of companies engaged in robotics and automation along with artificial intelligence.
The final source is companies with aggressive use of AI technology in their businesses.
