Robinhood Snaps Up AI Firm Pluto to Boost Retail Trading Smarts

Robinhood, a popular retail investment platform, has announced its acquisition of Pluto, an AI-driven investment advice company aimed at guiding ‘Generation Z’ in their financial endeavors. This move marks Robinhood’s first foray into using AI technology to serve its over 10 million monthly active users.

Pluto offered a range of web-based services, including enhanced data analysis, personalized investment strategies, real-time insights, and portfolio optimization. The system, described as an “investing copilot,” utilized advanced data analytics through large language models to process market data, identify trends and investment opportunities quickly, and tailor recommendations according to individual customer profiles based on risk tolerance and financial goals.

The founder and CEO of Pluto, Jacob Sansbury, started the company at the age of 24 and has garnered recognition as a “Gen Z boss” on Pluto’s TikTok channel. Prior to Pluto, Sansbury worked on NVIDIA’s cloud gaming service and was the youngest engineer ever hired at Bridgewater, a Connecticut-based asset manager where he focused on quantitative finance and systematic investing. Sansbury will now be joining Robinhood to help integrate AI-powered capabilities across the platform.

Robinhood is renowned for its user-friendly interface, allowing retail investors to trade stocks, options, and cryptocurrencies. The platform played a significant role during the 2021 “meme stock” craze, where individual investors rallied behind companies like GameStop, causing a surprise for Wall Street.

The company has been expanding its offerings, recently adding services like retirement products and credit cards. Last month, Robinhood acquired Bitstamp, a cryptocurrency exchange, for $200 million. With the addition of Pluto’s AI capabilities, Robinhood aims to further democratize access to financial services like wealth management and financial planning. This acquisition was announced by Ryan Ozawa.

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