If you don't want to choose individual stocks to invest in AI technology, I can't say I blame you. Of the roughly three dozen individual stocks in my portfolio, I'd call two of them "AI plays." And even these aren't really pure-plays – just businesses that stand to benefit from AI.

Instead of buying individual AI stocks, you could always take the ETF route. But the problem with AI ETFs is that their largest holdings are usually the same mega-cap tech stocks, or some combination of a handful of big tech companies.

One artificial intelligence ETF that is different from the rest is the Ark Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ -2.49%). Here's what it does and why you might want to take a closer look.

A different approach

There are several exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, that are focused on AI stocks, and some are excellent investment products with reasonable fees. But the Ark Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF does things a little differently.

For one thing, instead of being an index fund – aiming to match the performance of an AI stock index over time – Ark's funds are all actively managed. This means that they have portfolio managers (notable tech investor Cathie Wood) analyzing and selecting stocks with the goal of doing better than the benchmark AI indexes.

Because of this, the ETF's portfolio is a little more concentrated than most with just 35 stocks. And not only that, but the list of stocks doesn't look remotely like what some of the major AI index funds own. Just to name a couple examples:

• The iShares Future AI & Tech ETF (ARTY -0.58%) has Broadcom (AVGO -2.18%), Arista Networks (ANET -1.01%), and Nvidia (NVDA -3.00%) as its top three positions.
• The Invesco AI and Next Gen Software ETF (IGPT -1.53%) has its top three positions as Nvidia, Alphabet (GOOGL -0.98%) (GOOG -1.14%), and Meta Platforms (META 0.84%).

If you're at all familiar with the technology sector, none of these should be too much of a surprise. Most AI index funds are weighted in favor of the mega-cap players.

Don't get me wrong. Nvidia, Alphabet, Broadcom, and the others are great companies. But I could also get lots of concentrated exposure to them by simply buying a Nasdaq-100 index fund.

AI stocks you've probably never heard of

To be sure, the top holding of the Ark Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF is Tesla (TSLA -0.05%) – a company you're probably quite familiar with. 

However, the rest of the top five consists of Teradyne (TER -2.17%), Kratos Defense & Security (KTOS 1.49%), Rocket Lab USA (RKLB -1.65%), and Archer Aviation (ACHR -14.41%). Just to familiarize you:

• Teradyne is a $23 billion market cap robotics company.
• Kratos develops products and software, mainly for the defense industry, and has a market cap just over $4 billion.
• Rocket Lab has a $14 billion market cap and develops spacecraft and related components.
• Archer Aviation is valued at about $4.8 billion and develops electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.

For context, these four stocks have a combined market cap that is just over 1% of Nvidia's. But this Ark ETF has more than 31% of its assets invested in them.

A different approach without excessive fees

The key takeaway is that the Ark Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF is a great way to get AI exposure if you don't want to just invest in the usual suspects. There are large positions in some outside-the-box small and mid-cap stocks that have home run potential.

It's also important to note that while the fund's 0.75% expense ratio is high compared to say, an S&P 500 index fund, it isn't much higher than you'd pay for a passive AI ETF. I recently did an analysis of some of the most popular AI index funds, and their expense ratios ranged from 0.47% to 0.68%. So, for not much more, you'll get one of the most respected tech investors hand-selecting the best AI opportunities.