The future of Wall Street is here as startups and brokers build AI agents to trade 24/7

Imagine telling an AI agent how much risk you're willing to take, your retirement goals and when your kids will start college — then letting it manage your portfolio while you sleep.That vision of agentic trading, in which artificial intelligence doesn't just recommend investments but carries them out, is moving from concept to reality. Brokerages, startups and even retail investors are building AI agents that can help oversee portfolios and automate investing tasks once handled by humans."Effectively everybody has their own family office that is working 24/7 for them while they're awake or sleeping," said Devin Ryan, head of financial technology research at Citizens. "This isn't 10 years away. This is coming in the next few years."Ryan believes those agents will eventually do much more than buy and sell securities. He envisions AI continuously managing taxes, cash balances, borrowing, mortgages and investment portfolios — all tailored to an investor's financial goals. Fully autonomous investing remains a work in progress, but the race to build it is already underway.Building the futureRather than trying to create fully autonomous trading systems overnight, many firms are taking a ...