Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November 2022, AI has rapidly advanced beyond simple conversational interfaces toward autonomous “agentic AI”. While off-the-shelf large language models (LLMs) lack the contextual awareness and environmental integration needed to execute research tasks effectively, agentic AI systems can function as autonomous toolkits that bridge this gap. These systems can access proprietary data, write code using internal libraries, and run specialised analytical tools through natural language instructions. These advancements represent a significant opportunity to accelerate quantitative research.

In the first in a two-part series exploring the application of agentic AI to trend-following strategy design, we introduce the ‘Alpha Assistant’, an integrated AI-powered coding agent that helps researchers conduct proprietary quantitative analysis. We first outline what a baseline output from an off-the-shelf LLM looks like when instructed to write code for a trend strategy. We go on to demonstrate how agentic AI enables the transition from this generic and plausible – but ultimately inactionable – script to a fully integrated, actionable trend-following research output.

Read A Trend Following Deep Dive

Man Group

London-based Man Group is a technology-empowered active investor across equity, credit, commodities and currency markets, with a firm focus on delivering performance and client portfolio solutions.

Information provided is general information and is for educational purposes only, and does not include, or constitute as, financial product advice.