AI agents can now do trading for you, they can also buy stuff using your credit card
Would you trust AI to trade for you? Robinhood believes some of you might which is precisely why it is putting AI agents on its platform to presumably take some of the load off your shoulders. While risky, the move opens one more door for AI, to slip into our daily lives.
Trading is not an easy skill. You need to understand market conditions, keep track of various industry developments, and the works. More importantly, you must have great appetite for risk taking. The stakes are high. Robinhood, a US-based trading platform, is betting that people – traders – wouldn’t mind off-loading some of that work to AI.
In its latest update, Robinhood has added a feature that lets users buy or sell equities through AI agents. In fact, you can use any third-party AI agent from Claude to ChatGPT to trade for you on the platform, Robinhood says. Now, whether you trust AI to do those things depends entirely on your own jurisdiction.
AI for trading
If you decide to use AI to trade on Robinhood, you will need to open a dedicated agentic trading account first. This is separate from your primary account, the platform says. The AI Agent – Claude, ChatGPT and the likes – can connect to this agentic account to buy or sell equities on your behalf.
Given the risk of AI handling your finances, Robinhood has put some safeguards. Users will be able to pause autonomous trading at any time and preview trades made by their agents when asked. Robinhood states that you will also get a real-time activity feed and push notifications when an AI agent takes an action, and that a one-tap disconnect option would immediately cut the agent's access.
At launch, agentic trading is limited to equities. Though the company expects to expand the feature later to options, cryptocurrencies, event contracts, futures, derivatives and prediction markets.
AI links to credit card
There’s more. Robinhood has also launched an Agentic credit card feature for Robinhood Gold Card holders. The AI agent can access your credit card and make purchases within the limit you set, the platform says.
You will be able to turn on manual approval before any purchase is made via your card. The company states that agents could be used for purchases such as buying concert tickets before they sell out or buying items when prices fall below a set threshold.
There are other scenarios too. You can ask an agent to buy a pair of designer sneakers in a specific size if the price drops below a certain amount – Rs 20,000, or, secure a hard-to-get restaurant booking when a preferred slot opens up.
Despite the safeguards, Robinhood says users remain responsible for what their AI agents do ultimately. The company also warned that "AI-driven strategies may perform poorly under certain market conditions, move quickly, and may be difficult to monitor or stop in real time.”
The internet had quite a bit to say about letting agents get control of your trading portfolio and credit cards. One user joked that this may be their way to get rich. The user wrote, “Claude, take 20$ and turn them into 1,000,000$, don't make mistakes.”
Though some were not as convinced. One person wrote, “I know this is probably great for some, but it also is ‘what could possibly go wrong’ at scale.”
Another user shared a meme with the caption, “Me on the phone with my credit card company explaining the charges made were from my AI agent.”
While one person joked that their Claude limits may pose a challenge here. The person added, “Me explaining to my wife that we are broke because Claude hit the limit.”
Trading is not an easy skill. You need to understand market conditions, keep track of various industry developments, and the works. More importantly, you must have great appetite for risk taking. The stakes are high. Robinhood, a US-based trading platform, is betting that people – traders – wouldn’t mind off-loading some of that work to AI.
In its latest update, Robinhood has added a feature that lets users buy or sell equities through AI agents. In fact, you can use any third-party AI agent from Claude to ChatGPT to trade for you on the platform, Robinhood says. Now, whether you trust AI to do those things depends entirely on your own jurisdiction.
AI for trading
If you decide to use AI to trade on Robinhood, you will need to open a dedicated agentic trading account first. This is separate from your primary account, the platform says. The AI Agent – Claude, ChatGPT and the likes – can connect to this agentic account to buy or sell equities on your behalf.
Given the risk of AI handling your finances, Robinhood has put some safeguards. Users will be able to pause autonomous trading at any time and preview trades made by their agents when asked. Robinhood states that you will also get a real-time activity feed and push notifications when an AI agent takes an action, and that a one-tap disconnect option would immediately cut the agent's access.
At launch, agentic trading is limited to equities. Though the company expects to expand the feature later to options, cryptocurrencies, event contracts, futures, derivatives and prediction markets.
AI links to credit card
There’s more. Robinhood has also launched an Agentic credit card feature for Robinhood Gold Card holders. The AI agent can access your credit card and make purchases within the limit you set, the platform says.
You will be able to turn on manual approval before any purchase is made via your card. The company states that agents could be used for purchases such as buying concert tickets before they sell out or buying items when prices fall below a set threshold.
There are other scenarios too. You can ask an agent to buy a pair of designer sneakers in a specific size if the price drops below a certain amount – Rs 20,000, or, secure a hard-to-get restaurant booking when a preferred slot opens up.
Despite the safeguards, Robinhood says users remain responsible for what their AI agents do ultimately. The company also warned that "AI-driven strategies may perform poorly under certain market conditions, move quickly, and may be difficult to monitor or stop in real time.”
The internet had quite a bit to say about letting agents get control of your trading portfolio and credit cards. One user joked that this may be their way to get rich. The user wrote, “Claude, take 20$ and turn them into 1,000,000$, don't make mistakes.”
Though some were not as convinced. One person wrote, “I know this is probably great for some, but it also is ‘what could possibly go wrong’ at scale.”
Another user shared a meme with the caption, “Me on the phone with my credit card company explaining the charges made were from my AI agent.”
While one person joked that their Claude limits may pose a challenge here. The person added, “Me explaining to my wife that we are broke because Claude hit the limit.”
