Why talk about AI in trading technology?

July 19, 2025 · 3 min read · ai trading technology  ·
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I don't know who put down ChatGPT on their christmas list for 2022, but we all got it. GenAI has been the talk of the town for the best part of three years now. And the buzz seems to keep growing, with Agentic AI the topic of 2025.

There is, of course, the hype. What's different about AI, though, is that this is unlike any technology we've seen in the recent past. Software is rapidly shifting from its deterministic (binary) foundations to a probabilistic model. And this inexorable march is creating challenges like never before. This has the potential to change the very nature of work and interactions as we know them today.

Almost every leader in every industry is thinking about how AI could change existing workflows. Every problem is being evaluated through the lens of AI. This thought process is being applied across all departments and business units within their organization. Andy Jassy from Amazon has highlighted how he expects AI to fundamentally change what's possible for customers and businesses1,2. This message is not lost on industry leaders across the globe.

Something big is happening.

Financial Services is no different. In fact, many senior leaders across leading investment banks and buy-side firms have been regularly talking about AI opportunities, adoption and productionization. Aman Thind, CTO of State Street Alpha recently presented how AI is being adopted and rolled out at State Street3. Lori Beer discussed this topic in detail on the BBG Tech Disruptors podcast4. Marco Argenti from Goldman Sachs recently announced the rollout of their LLM platform to over 40000 employees5.

Trading Technology is my jam. The backdrop of high regulation, high digitization and a great degree of automation (STP processing and such like), makes it all the more challenging to find opportunities for AI-driven automation. That said the entire investment lifecycle is still very operationally intensive. There are many, many steps in the process, which when augmented with AI capabilities, could be a true differentiator for clients and investors.

I'm mostly interested in the trading lifecycle, i.e. the process from once an investment decision is made, to orders going out to the market, trades getting agreed and filled, order being confirmed/affirmed and settled, and finally those trades being sent to back office systems for accounting and reconciliation.

AWS calls 2025, the year of business value6. In reality, though, 2025 is the year of discovering business value. Like always, you need a well-understood problem and a business plan for adoption of new technology. The only job family where we some traction is the software industry. Coding agents, copilots, and AI-native IDEs are popping up everywhere and the market is heating up. For AI to move beyond software engineering into the businesses that they support, we need to find the right problems. This has proven difficult given the unprecedented rate of change and the inherent lack of certainty. So it is very hard to pin down a business case where the AI-driven solution is mature, durable, and consistent.

Also, finding opportunities in the banking industry for AI solutions is not so easy. Ultimately, we manage other people's money. And so, the onus on building robust governance, guardrails and control gates is squarely on us. This is why progress has been slower in the financial services industry so far (a topic for another day). Be that as it may, the focus on AI couldn't be greater. I'm intrigued to learn more about the possibilities and opportunities.

Stay tuned.

[1] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-on-generative-ai [2] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-ai [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0o4GLFHgPQ [4] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2025-05-29/jpmorgan-s-cio-on-the-global-bank-s-ai-approach-tech-disruptors [5] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marcoargenti_goldman-sachs-announces-firmwide-launch-of-activity-7342941297579622404-LrqR?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAEEzisBMpqdymuGLcTi_opq7saGUITWX2w [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YssE42lQUM