Artificial intelligence (AI) stocks have soared over the past couple of years, helping the S&P 500 roar into bull territory. The reason for all of the excitement? AI could be a game-changer, helping companies reduce costs, become more efficient, and even make major discoveries -- for example, in healthcare, pharma players might create better drugs faster.

All of this could result in significant earnings gains for companies that got in on this story in its early chapters. Investors recognize this and realize that they, too, could set themselves up for a win by piling into the strongest players as the technology develops. That's why they've bought shares of companies making critical tools to power AI development or selling these products to others -- and players already applying AI to their businesses.

The one negative point, though, is valuations of many surged, pushing them to levels considered expensive. As a result, some investors wondered if the AI buying opportunity was over. But I've got some good news for you today, especially if you're a bargain hunter. While recent market declines haven't been fun for anyone, they have accomplished one thing: They've pushed certain quality AI players into dirt cheap territory, creating a buying opportunity you won't want to miss. It's unlikely that even a period of headwinds such as economic troubles or government policies could derail the long-term prospects of these companies. After all, today's $200 billion AI market is expected to reach more than $1 trillion by the end of the decade.

Let's take a look at two AI giants that are on sale.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Nvidia

You might not expect star AI stock Nvidia (NVDA -5.74%) to be on this list. In fact, after the long series of quarterly blowout earnings reports, including the most recent, and years of spectacular stock performance, you might expect Nvidia to be quite pricey. But Nvidia never got into ridiculously expensive territory, and today, it's actually fallen into ridiculously cheap territory. More on that in a minute, but first let's talk about why this player belongs in your portfolio.

Nvidia's a market leader, and its focus on innovation is likely to keep it in that position -- and the company has delivered strong profitability on sales over time, including during the recent product launch period, a time when it's not easy to keep costs down. As the company launched its new Blackwell architecture, gross margin remained above 70%.

It's important to remember Nvidia plays a key role in the AI world, selling the fastest chip -- a product that powers crucial and essential AI tasks like the training of models. Customers include the biggest tech companies -- from Microsoft to Meta Platforms -- and they are eager to go for the best chips and related products since they aim to win in the area of AI. They also have the financial strength to continue this investment. All of this bodes well for Nvidia.

So how cheap is Nvidia right now? The stock is trading at a shockingly low level, at 25 times forward earnings estimates -- down from as much as 48 back in January. Considering all of the points above, Nvidia is a no-brainer buy for any AI investor right now.

2. Alphabet

You may know Alphabet (GOOG -0.45%) (GOOGL -0.39%) for something many of us use daily -- Google Search. It's the world's most popular search engine, and this has helped Alphabet generate billions of dollars in revenue through offering advertising across its platform. But Alphabet also has another revenue driver, one that's growing in the double digits.

This is Google Cloud, a business that posted a 30% gain in revenue to $12 billion in the most recent quarter. And much of Google Cloud's recent success stems from the company's investment in AI.

Through this unit, Alphabet offers customers a variety of AI products and services, and the company even has developed its own large language model (LLM), Gemini, that customers can leverage for their AI needs. Alphabet itself uses Gemini to improve its own business, for example supercharging Google Search to produce better and more complete results than in the past.

Alphabet plans on making $75 billion in capital expenditures this year to further expand its technical infrastructure for AI, setting itself up to benefit through the next chapters of AI growth.

And now makes a great time to get in on this present day and future AI winner because the stock is trading for only 19 times forward earnings estimates, down from more than 24 in December,  which, even at that level, looked reasonable. This offers bargain-hunting investors an opportunity to get in on an AI market leader at a price that's right up their alley.