AI Articles and Analysis in Finance

More data, less problems?
How AI is transforming the financial marketplace and operations from the inside out.
AI got a head-start in the information-rich financial industry over two decades ago, though the applications of today—robo-advisors and algorithmic traders, for example—are far more autonomous and omnipresent, accelerated in large by the increasing availability of data and advanced analytics technologies. The "prestige" associated with the use of AI and ML technologies in finance is reflected in initiatives like The AI Financial Summit, an invite-only conference that gathers C-level execs from across the financial industry sector and puts them in a room with AI experts and service providers. But a company doesn't necessarily need to be invited to a closed conference in order to apply or learn from emerging technologies in the industry.

There is a certain level of stigma that exists around using machine learning and location data in business applications, understandably due to risks inherent in exploitation of individual privacy. But if we look under the hood of society's daily web of interactions, we see that the location information economy—from GPS to radio signal based-triangulation to geo-tagged images and beyond—is now almost ubiquitous, from the moment we track our morning commute to the end-of-day search for healthy and convenient take-out for dinner.

With all the excitement and hype about AI that’s “just around the corner”—self-driving cars, instant machine translation, etc.—it can be difficult to see how AI is affecting the lives of regular people from moment to moment. What are examples of artificial intelligence that you're already using—right now?

Episode Summary: In many ways, AI and finance are made for each other. Machine learning and other techniques make it easier to identify patterns that might otherwise not be detected by the human eye, and finance is quantitative to begin with, so that it’s hard not to find traction. Financial firms have also invested heavily in AI in the past, and more are starting to tap into the financial applications of machine learning (ML) and deep learning. Artificial intelligence in stock trading certainly isn't a new phenomena, but access to it's capabilities has historically been rather limited to large firms.
This week, we’re joined by CEO and Co-founder of Kavout Alex Lu, whose company offers AI trading applications for enterprises and individuals. Lu speaks today about the kinds of patterns that traders now have access to in finance, and he gives examples of ways Kavout and other institutions are using artificial intelligence in stock trading to build better and more personalized products and services.

Since Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Kik, Slack, and a growing number of bot-creation platforms came online, developers have been churning out chatbots across industries, with Facebook's most recent bot count at over 33,000. At a CRM technologies conference in 2011, Gartner predicted that 85 percent of customer engagement would be fielded without human intervention. Though a seeming natural fit for retail and purchasing-related decisions, it doesn't appear that chatbot technology will play favorites in the coming few years, with uses cases being promoted in finance, human resources, and even legal services.

Episode Summary: Crowdsourcing is a relatively common term in technical vernacular today. Even if you're not a self-identified "techie", you may very may well have leveraged crowdsourcing in journalism, the sciences, public policy, or elsewhere. One area in which this concept hasn’t really taken off is in finance and hedge funds. In this episode, we speak with Numerai Founder Richard Craib, whose company is crowdsourcing a machine learning hedge fund. Their model is based on pooling data science talent from all over the world and using "anonymous" models to train financial data. These models compete against one another, and the winning models' creators are rewarded in bitcoin - a process based entirely on encryption and anonymity. Craib speaks about his overarching vision for the company, and also delves into his thoughts on the past, present, and future of AI applications in finance.
 

Episode Summary: Big data is often a buzz word, but if you're trying to quantify data around homes in the U.S. and pair that with hard to quantify information  - like images - you're likely running into the frontiers of machine learning technology. This is something Zillow deals with daily. In this episode, Stan Humphries, chief analytics officer and economist for Zillow, speaks about where they're leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence (hint: almost everywhere), and what he believes are the keys for deriving real ROI opportunities using this technology. Humphries also offers insights for how other companies can model the successful decision-making processes and implementation strategies used by Zillow.

Episode Summary: Fifteen years ago, investing in AI may have seemed a bit far-fetched, but today it's not at all a rare occurrence; however, it's more rare to find entire firms dedicated to investing entirely in AI. In today's episode, we're joined by Saman Farid, co-founder of Comet Labs, an investment firm focused on investment in AI companies across industries. He speaks about his investment hypothesis in the future of AI, why he’s decided to hone his funds in this domain, and the different domains where he believes AI is ripe to disrupt on a global level in the coming few years.