Many artificial intelligence (AI) stocks have generated fantastic gains for investors over the past couple of years. Even if you didn't invest early in this trend, you still could have made good returns last year by investing in some top performing AI stocks.

Artificial intelligence continued to be a driving force behind stock market returns in 2024. Here are some of the stocks that have benefited the most.

One of the biggest themes that helped drive the market last year was artificial intelligence (AI). Known as one of the U.S. government's most important vendors, Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) and its data gathering and analytics solutions have been used for such critical tasks as fighting terrorism and tracking COVID-19 cases.

SoundHound AI has been one of the best-performing stocks on the market in the past year, registering stunning gains of 936% as of this writing, thanks to a combination of factors. SoundHound took off big time in February last year after it emerged that artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia has a small stake in the company.