In the last week two announcements quietly redrew the boundary between human investing and agentic AI trading. eToro launched Agent Portfolios, allowing users to start trading with AI Agents. A few days later Public launched an agentic AI trading solution and their launch video quickly went viral on X.
It was only a matter of time before this Rubicon was crossed.
The SEC moved to regulate AI use in 2024, though it remains unclear how that policy will be enforced.
Many firms are still working out how agentic AI will make automated decisions for enterprise workflows. Yet as of this week, agentic AI is already making investment decisions for consumers. A JPMorgan report called eToro’s AI integration a potential game-changer.
Automated portfolio management has been around for some time in the robo-advisor space. Robo-advisors can rebalance portfolios on a schedule or track to a target allocation. AI agents are much more proactive and can react to breaking news, earnings calls, or market conditions in real time.
AI agents making real time trading decisions based on market events opens up a whole new frontier.
The robo-advisor space never fully lived up to its promise, largely because investors still wanted a human in the loop. It will be interesting to see if consumers are willing to extend that same trust to an AI agent that can trade in real time.
For the big asset management firms, there’s an even bigger issue looming on the horizon. If agentic AI trading for consumers does succeed, who exactly are the asset management firms going to be selling to?
If an AI agent selects a passive index fund or executes an investment strategy, its likely going to select products based on the best data available to the AI model. The relationship manager, the wholesaler, the carefully crafted pitch deck, the client lunch - none of that influences an AI agent.
It’s more important than ever that investment firms accelerate their retrieval pipeline strategies so they can make clean, timely, and structured product data available to AI models.