Regardless of whether it manages to eke out a fresh record close, Friday promises to be an auspicious day for the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average. That's because it marks the first trading session where Sherwin-Williams and Nvidia Corp.

AI's investor potential goes far beyond the chip giant. Perhaps no stock benefited more from the boom in artificial intelligence (AI) than Nvidia. Its dominance in the AI chip market redefined the direction of the company and much of the industry at large.

Among the Dow’s newest members, it was paint, not chips, aiding the index today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finally replaced Intel with Nvidia, but the AI chip titan was actually hurting the blue-chip index in its debut performance.