Can AI Make You a Better Investor?

I was very pleased to chat with Andrew Galbraith of the Globe and Mail for his story about how investors are using machine learning and AI technologies to find investment opportunities.

The fundamentals of a particular security are easier and faster to analyze with AI, because AI does math and statistics very well. Math is math.

But knowing the fundamentals of a particular security, even deeply, doesn’t necessary translate into an investment policy that’s followed with discipline.

When it comes to the “rules” of investing…well, are there any? AI can generate a lot of feasible outcomes from a set of starting conditions…but can it pick which one will actually happen?

From the CFA Institute:

The rules and dynamics that govern the outcomes the models try to predict are not constant. This is further complicated by the irrationality of human behavior, which collectively determine the results of financial markets.

AI isn’t creating new information, it’s relying on information built into a model that you’re accessing. Before seeking out investment advice from AI, you have to ask:

• How good is the information that went into the model?

• Is the model subject to regulation and oversight by a securities body? If you wouldn’t trust a human with no oversight to make decisions about your portfolio, what reason do you have for trusting a model with no oversight? 

• Who is responsible if AI gives you what would be criminally bad advice if a human gave it to you? 

• Do you have access to the same model as everyone else? Do the people and institutions you’re trading against have a better one?

Subscribers to the The Globe and Mail can read the full story in the May 8, 2026 edition