Jensen Huang has spent the past year saying the next artificial intelligence (AI) boom will land in factories, warehouses, hospitals, and on highways, where AI gets a body. Generative AI taught machines to think in language and pixels; embodied AI teaches them to act in the physical world through humanoids, autonomous vehicles, surgical robots, and industrial automation. For investors who want a basket rather than a single bet, five ETFs offer the cleanest way to play it:
- Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (NASDAQ: BOTZ)
- ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (NYSEARCA: ARKQ)
- ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index ETF (NYSEARCA: ROBO)
- First Trust Nasdaq Artificial Intelligence and Robotics ETF (NASDAQ: ROBT)
- ROBO Global Artificial Intelligence ETF (NYSEARCA: THNQ)
These five split into two camps. BOTZ, ROBO, and ARKQ tilt toward the physical hardware that gives AI its body: actuators, sensors, and chassis. ROBT and THNQ lean into the software brains and compute layer that make embodied systems intelligent. Most investors will want some of each.
BOTZ: The household-name pure-play
BOTZ is the fund most retail investors think of first when they hear “robotics ETF,” and that liquidity matters when moving size without slippage. The fund concentrates on global leaders in industrial automation, surgical robotics, and AI semiconductors: Nvidia, Intuitive Surgical, ABB, Keyence, and Fanuc. That mix is exactly what Huang describes when talking about embodied AI: factory arms learning from simulation, da Vinci systems operating in hospitals, and chips coordinating them.
The case for BOTZ is structural. The fund has returned about 30% over the past year and is up roughly 10% year to date, with shares near $40. The tradeoff is concentration: a handful of Japanese and Swiss automation giants drive a large share of returns, so BOTZ behaves more like a focused growth fund than a diversified theme play.
ARKQ: The aggressive active bet on humanoids and autonomy
If BOTZ is the index approach, ARKQ is the conviction approach. Cathie Wood’s team runs ARKQ as an actively managed fund that invests at least 80% of assets in autonomous technology and robotics companies focused on disruptive innovation in automation, transportation, energy, AI, and materials. The portfolio reads like a who’s who of embodied AI: Tesla at roughly 10%, Teradyne about 8%, AMD above 6%, plus Kratos Defense, Rocket Lab, Deere, and Palantir.
That Tesla weighting is the heart of the bull case. If Optimus humanoids and full self-driving move from demo to revenue, ARKQ has more direct exposure than any other broad robotics ETF. The fund is up about 67% over the past year and over 14% year to date, with 39% in industrials and 32% in information technology in sector mix.
The tradeoff is volatility. ARKQ is concentrated and high-beta with $2.1 billion in assets and meaningful Tesla single-name risk. When the embodied AI narrative falters, this fund will fall harder than passive peers.
ROBO: The picks-and-shovels diversifier
ROBO was the original robotics ETF and still offers the broadest exposure across the value chain. The fund’s modified equal-weight methodology spreads risk across sensors, actuators, compute, and end-market applications, with about 43% in information technology and 46% in industrials. Geographically it leans heavily on the United States at 39% and Japan at 21%, capturing the world’s two most important industrial automation ecosystems.
The fund’s current largest weights belong to companies like Harmonic Drive Systems, Hiwin Technologies, Ambarella, Infineon, and Jenoptik, with smaller weights to Nvidia, Rockwell Automation, and Fanuc. That mix is the picks-and-shovels of embodied AI: the semiconductor test equipment, factory automation, and motion control that every humanoid and autonomous machine depends on. With $4.73 billion in net assets, ROBO is the largest pure robotics fund here and has returned about 52% over the past year and roughly 22% year to date.
The tradeoff is the flip side of diversification. Because no single name dominates, ROBO will lag a concentrated winner like ARKQ in years when one or two stocks run away.
ROBT: The balanced AI-and-robotics blend
ROBT tracks a Nasdaq index that deliberately splits holdings into AI “enablers,” “engagers,” and “enhancers,” giving investors both brains and bodies in one wrapper. The tiered weighting tilts the fund more toward AI software than ROBO or BOTZ while keeping meaningful robotics hardware exposure. That balance answers whether embodied AI will be won by chipmakers, model builders, or robot OEMs. The honest answer is some of each, and ROBT does not force a choice.
Performance has been the most muted of the five, with shares near $54, up about 19% over the past year but less than 4% year to date. By spreading across tiers, ROBT captures less upside when a single sub-theme rips, which is why it has trailed more concentrated funds recently.
THNQ: The overlooked compute-layer pick
THNQ is the unconventional choice on this list and the one most readers will not find on a basic robotics screen. As the AI-pure-play sibling to ROBO, it covers cloud compute, semiconductors, AI software, and applied AI in healthcare and business processes. A humanoid without a foundation model is little more than a mannequin. The training compute, inference chips, and vision-language models that make a robot useful all live inside the names THNQ holds.
The market is catching on. THNQ has returned over 54% over the past year and roughly 23% year to date, with a five-year gain of 1065%. The tradeoff is that THNQ is not technically a robotics fund. In a year when physical robotics underperforms software, THNQ will diverge from BOTZ and ROBO in ways that surprise investors expecting closer tracking.
How to choose among them
The decision comes down to which slice of the embodied AI stack will capture the most value. Someone who wants the cleanest, most liquid robotics exposure and is comfortable with concentrated industrial automation should start with BOTZ. An investor with conviction in Tesla’s Optimus and higher risk tolerance will find ARKQ the most direct expression of that view. Those who prefer broad, equal-weight diversification across the robotics value chain belong in ROBO, the largest and most institutional of the group.
ROBT suits investors who do not want to pick between hardware and software and are willing to accept more modest peaks for a balanced ride. THNQ works as a complement to the hardware-tilted funds. Pairing it with BOTZ or ROBO gives exposure to both bodies and brains, which more closely mirrors how Huang describes the opportunity. None of these funds is a guaranteed winner, however. Embodied AI is a credible multi-year thesis, and these are the cleanest ways to express it without betting the outcome on any single stock.
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