Key Takeaways
- Google searches for “how to buy bitcoin” have outpaced “how to invest in AI.”
- AI investment options range from public stocks and ETFs to private startups and pre-IPO markets.
- Bitcoin offers more direct exposure to an asset, while AI investing often requires choosing specific companies or funds.
“Bitcoin bull run just started, but no one cares,” Ki Young Ju, founder of crypto asset analytics platform Cryptoquant, posted on X earlier this month, sharing a chart with skyrocketing “AI” searches and a relatively flat line for “Bitcoin” searches.
However, this picture changes dramatically when Google Trends compares two other queries: “how to invest in AI” vs. “how to buy bitcoin.”
Bitcoin Wins Over AI, AI Wins Over ETH, SOL, XRP and Zcash
The graph below shows that searches for buying bitcoin started increasing in June 2025 and peaked in February 2026 before sharply dropping alongside the price slide this year.
Searches for buying Bitcoin have started trending up again since March. On the AI side, searches for investing in AI peaked around December 2025 and have been trending down since then.
Also, at least in terms of Google searches, people are still more interested in investing in AI than buying ethereum, solana, XRP, zcash or other crypto assets.
Meanwhile, searches for “bitcoin” and “bitcoin price” substantially beat all the above-mentioned queries, except for “AI,” which is more of an apples-to-oranges comparison.
In either case, all this data has caveats. For example, people may be googling “bitcoin” less because the cryptocurrency is already widely recognized and known worldwide. Also, AI platforms are increasingly being used to search for content online, which is not reflected in Google Trends, not to mention other search engines.
How to Invest in AI
What’s more, buying bitcoin is a more straightforward endeavor than investing in the AI sector. A person can simply buy bitcoin on centralized exchanges and peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms, through brokers or via an ETF, among other ways. Therefore, you get exposure to a specific asset, while “investing in AI” mostly means putting your money and trust into a specific entity, whether it is a company or a fund that tracks the sector.
For example, the market is waiting for trillion-dollar IPOs from giant AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic. The latter is still expected to happen toward the end of this year, with November mentioned as the likely month for the debut. Meanwhile, OpenAI confirmed it would not IPO this year and, at the moment, did not want to commit to 2027 either.
However, you can already get exposure to these companies through crypto-related products, such as perpetual futures or pre-IPO futures on crypto exchanges such as Kraken, Coinbase, Binance, Hyperliquid and OKX. Meanwhile, as reported by Bitcoin.com News, Ark Invest said its eligible investors will be able to get exposure to Anthropic and OpenAI through its tokenized $1.3 billion ARK Venture Fund.
In the meantime, here are some other ways you can invest in AI now:
- Buy shares of publicly traded AI-related companies, such as Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and Palantir
- Buy AI-focused ETFs or mutual funds
- Invest in cloud and data-center infrastructure providers, such as Amazon (AWS), Azure and Oracle Cloud
- Buy semiconductor and chip supply-chain stocks, such as TSMC, ASML, and AMD
- Invest in private AI startups through venture capital or angel investing
- Buy shares in equity crowdfunding platforms backing AI startups
- Invest in energy and utility companies supplying power to data centers
- Buy AI-related robotics or automation company stocks
- Invest in AI-adjacent cybersecurity firms
- Buy pre-IPO shares through secondary markets, if an accredited investor
- Hold AI-related tokens or blockchain-AI hybrid projects
- Invest in companies building AI applications for specific industries
Should You Buy Bitcoin or Invest in AI?
As these are different sectors, it all depends on your investment thesis and technical abilities if you decide to hold bitcoin in a self-custody wallet. Moreover, for diversification, you can get exposure to both sectors.
While their results vary on different timelines, here is how some AI-related investments have performed this year compared with bitcoin.
Blackrock’s iShares AI Innovation and Tech Active ETF has returned around 41% to investors this year. Nvidia is up 18%, but has been largely flat for the past four months. Microsoft stock has advanced nearly 9% this year, rallying 38% in the past six months alone. AWS owner Amazon is up 9% this year, while TSMC and AMD rallied 41% and 182%, respectively.
Meanwhile, bitcoin is still down about 4% this year, despite rallying 38% in the past quarter, as the market increasingly expects a fresh bull market.
However, none of these results, including bitcoin’s, guarantee future returns. Also, as reported, AI now affects so many industries that giant investment funds are becoming more worried that their usual diversification across different sectors won’t protect them as it did before.
