Generative artificial intelligence isn’t helping hedge funds produce market-beating returns and isn’t meaningfully impacting the industry so far, according to billionaire Ken Griffin.
“With GenAI there are clearly ways it enhances productivity, but for uncovering alpha it just falls short,” Griffin, the founder of hedge fund giant Citadel, said Wednesday at the JPMorgan Robin Hood Investors Conference in New York.
The technology hasn’t replaced the meaningful research done at Citadel, he said, according to people in attendance, who asked not to be identified as the event was closed to media.
Griffin has previously made other skeptical comments about AI, calling it a limited tool when it comes to investment analysis and downplaying the notion that technology will replace human jobs in the near future.
Griffin founded Citadel in 1990 and has grown the firm into a US$69 billion ($77.62 billion) industry behemoth, which uses teams of traders to make bets across a variety of asset classes.
At the conference, Griffin said generative AI is unlikely to create widespread changes. It will have impact, but one that won’t be profound, and the technology will disproportionately hit different sectors, he added, according to the people in attendance.
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AI is propelling corporate America to invest in technology and elevate their chief technology officers, he said, resulting in advancements in their business that should have been made over the past 25 years.
