Oisin Breen

My quote sounds a bit snappy; I was not specifically talking about this company.

I just find that AI and machine learning are often cart-before-the-horse-y. I once spoke with a sovereign investment fund looking to invest in AI-related fintech - but why should the approach matter more than the problem? "Blockchain" is even worse.

In my opinion, AI is good for patterns (recognition, classification, etc.), especially when structured approaches (such as rules) can't be used. For example, I can see alpha generation benefiting - although if anyone could do this, they'd be prop trading instead. I don't understand how managing a portfolio day-to-day can utilize AI, let alone need it. Disclaimer: I didn't understand how exactly they would apply AI, and I'm not an AI expert, although I studied computer science, dabbled in early forms of this stuff, and currently write code for a living.

Coincidentally, two days ago I met up with my Harvard operating systems professor who told me I could call our optimization approach "interpretable AI". Best marketing advice ever!

Brooke Southall and Keith Girard

Amid $90 million 'A' raise, 33 Google executives join two Google CEOs and 140 VC investors to launch 'kickass' robo, pitching AI, performance fees and private equity to accredited investors

Google

Pershing Advisor Solutions

Arta Finance

Stripped down to its essentials, financial advice is a fairly straightforward proposition. Done well, a highly ethical individual stewards the assets and actions of an investor in a personal and professional interchange.
 
But now a vibrant new class of entrepreneurs is staking their fates and their fortunes on the premise that financial advice can be delivered in a better, cheaper, easier, more ethical, more transparent manner and, as a bonus, in a way more devoid of human annoyance on both ends of the transaction.
 
Cue the robo-advisors, arguably a callous misnomer for automated asset management. 
 
The prototypical robo-advisory entrepreneur has more brands on his or her resume than NASCAR. The bona fides of these industry upstarts often include Ivy-level colleges and MBA programs at Harvard or Stanford. They are often flush with IPO dollars realized at concerns like LinkedIn, Facebook, eBay, Amazon  and Microsoft. 
 
Robo-folk believe that technology is not an enabler of advice but rather, if engineered correctly, advice itself in digital form. 
 
And, they believe the best solutions originate in Silicon Valley or academia, not Wall Street. Robo-entrepreneurs are white-boarding the whole business model, culture and technology from scratch in the conviction that little can be learned from a legacy advice system still rooted in an investment banking culture acting under the core premise that if stockbrokers get rich some of the good effects will trickle down to clients – with the clients none the wiser. 
 
Robo-advisors are a scintillating topic for students of the advice game as they grow by hundreds of millions in assets every month, constantly evolve their business models and receive cash infusions from ever-larger swaths of venture capitals.
 
Throw in the fact that robo-advisors have yet to see a dime in profits -- and won’t in the foreseeable future -- and you have real intrigue. 
 
RIABiz has avidly covered the fast-evolving robo-advice phenomenon and will continue to do so. We present the growing body of articles here.

Robo-Advisors

<p>The RIA business has many tech vendors working hard to serve its diverse needs, and we're seeing technology become a more crucial part of setting up and running an RIA than ever before.</p>

<p>The Technology section includes unbiased tech reviews, tech-related news, and coverage of tech-related conferences.</p>

Technology

Wealth technology experts have doubts that even a transplanted Google AI super brain will ask the correct right-brained questions, but they also see promise in a no-brainer VC distribution pipeline.

Amid $90 million 'A' raise, 33 Google executives join two Google CEOs and 140 VC investors to launch 'kickass' robo, pitching AI, performance fees and private equity to accredited investors

Related Moves

July 9, 2019 at 11:33 PM

Iraklis Kourtidis

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