At a glance, UiPath (NYSE: PATH) seems to be on a roll, with shares up more than 40% in 2023 as of this writing, thanks to investors' enthusiasm for almost any stock peripherally associated with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). If you zoom out, however, you'll see that shares of the work-automation software leader are still down around 7% over the past year and remain nearly 80% below their post-initial public offering (IPO) highs from mid-2021.

UiPath's recent gains also pale in comparison to many other AI stocks. Take C3.ai, for example, which has soared a whopping 260% year to date, or Palantir, which has skyrocketed 178%. Even the S 500 is up nearly 20% year to date, and the market's megacap tech stocks have easily outpaced UiPath -- which still stands firmly in mid-cap territory with a market cap of $9.5 billion -- in recent months. Amazon and Google parent are both up around 50% this year, and Facebook parent Meta has soared 160%.

They're different businesses with different stories, of course, so certainly not apples-to-apples comparisons. But I can't help but shake the feeling that in its current state, UiPath is one of the market's most underappreciated AI stocks today.

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Source Fool.com