Bots get brokerage keys

Retail traders have been letting AI take a heavier hand in their portfolios for a while: It started with research, then investment advice, and now, autonomous stock trading.

Today, Robinhood unveiled two new products—Agentic Trading and an Agentic Credit Card—that allow users to connect AI agents like Claude and Cursor to an investment account, and give those agents detailed instructions to conduct trades and make purchases on their behalf.

Robinhood said investors will be able to ask their agent to review their portfolio’s concentration risk, or a retail trader might use it to build a complicated mean-reversion strategy that finds and then buys oversold stocks. Customers can also connect an AI agent to their Robinhood Gold credit card, and ask it to do things like monitor for discounts, snag restaurant reservations, or make purchases for a special occasion, according to the user’s instructions.

“Our mission has always been to democratize finance for all, and now, that mission extends to AI agents,” explained Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev in a statement.

Robinhood gained 2.87% today.

Everything is AI these days

Robinhood isn’t the only company rolling out as many products with the word “AI” in it as possible.

Earlier this year, Public launched a similar feature that enables AI agents to operate users’ portfolios. Back in April, Citigroup unleashed an AI agent named Sky that answers investors’ questions. Even AI companies themselves can see that financially-focused AI has an audience: OpenAI is launching a personal finance product through ChatGPT.

After all, Americans are increasingly turning to AI for financial advice. But asking ChatGPT what a dividend is and sending an AI agent to go on a spending spree while you make lunch are two completely different things. It’s unclear how many investors will feel comfortable handing the reins over to a robot.

According to Deepak Rao, Vice President of Robinhood Money, the reception from retail traders has been warm. “I do think it’s being embraced by the active trading community,” he told us. “I think the reception from today also shows that…a lot of people want to have access to this.”—LB