Hey, I’m Matt. You’re reading AI Street, where I cover how Wall Street uses AI. On Tuesdays, I report on how a firm is using AI, talk with an expert, or dig into new research.
Citadel Securities is helping clients build AI agents, a sign of how market makers could expand AI adoption by providing hands-on support to institutional investors.
Speaking to clients in New York Oct. 20, Citadel Securities’ technology COO Jeff Maurone said: “We have teams working with your teams building agents together.”
In his talk, Maurone said the firm is helping clients build secure sandboxes around agents, organize data for models to access, simplify trading platforms to support agents and scale quantitative research. The market maker has spent time with more than 100 client tech teams over the last year across AI adoption, agent development and quantitative research.
A Citadel Securities spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Sell-side equity trading desks already help clients tailor execution algorithms to their trading needs and styles. Kevin McPartland, head of market structure and technology research at Crisil Coalition Greenwich, sees agent development as a potential extension of that service.
“I could see sell side e-trading desks offering to help clients build agents to improve their trading outcomes,” he said by email. “Agentic is the new algo.”
In a client letter earlier this year, Citadel Securities president Jim Esposito described plans to connect market insights and analytics with trading and “place new applications directly into clients’ hands.”
PRESENTED BY VECVIZ
Give Your AI Agent Stock Analytics to Work With
What would it take for a stock to reach your price target? How does its downside risk compare with other names?
VecViz combines price charts and market narratives to produce valuation, risk and timing metrics. Use its dashboards to explore the results, or connect your own AI agent through its API or MCP server.
Try VecViz free on 10 tickers
Thus far, AI trading agent use cases I’ve covered (and am aware of) have focused on retail brokers. There are a number of firms that either offer access to an agent or allow you to bring your own agent to trade, including Robinhood, Interactive Brokers and Moomoo. See more here:
AI agent adoption has been relatively slow on Wall Street. What I mean is that while there are lots of headlines about firms being “AI native,” most use cases have humans in the loop, so aren’t really autonomous. And I think it just takes time. It’s only been like four years since OpenAI released ChatGPT. AI is complex and companies are bureaucratic. Plus, there just aren’t that many people with this kind of experience, and those who have it are highly sought after.
This is sort of a long way of saying that this move by Citadel makes sense. Not every investor can or wants to build out their own AI team and functionality. Citadel has the expertise to help them get started, giving those clients another reason to keep trading with the firm. As Esposito put it in a podcast last year, drawing a parallel to Amazon: “Amazon creates stickiness between their platform and their client.”
See How 53 Financial Firms use AI
The AI Street AI Tracker is a database that tracks what financial firms have publicly said about how they’re using AI. It includes 93 entries covering 53 firms, including Bridgewater, Two Sigma, Man Group, AQR and Balyasny.
The entries draw on interviews, conference talks and technical posts, with links to the original sources and key takeaways. You can search by firm, person, use case or keyword.
Paid subscribers can access the tracker below:
Citadel Securities’ Client Tools
Below the paywall: more details on the specific use cases outlined by Maurone.