Over the past year, Artificial Intelligence has shifted from being a buzzword to something that is actively changing how work gets done. This is true especially in technology, but increasingly it is affecting businesses in every sector of the economy. The speed at which AI is getting better at solving problems and improving workflow is astonishing. In software development, AI tools are now doing in minutes what used to take programmers weeks. These systems can generate, review, and refine large amounts of code. Their ability to communicate what they are doing and why has them acting like an additional team member. The result isn’t just marginal efficiency, it’s a step-change in output. Companies are launching products faster, testing ideas more quickly, and operating with smaller teams. In some cases, firms have reduced the size of their technical staff while increasing overall production. What’s important here is that this isn’t just about programmers. The same types of AI systems are being applied to legal research, financial modeling, marketing copy, customer service, and medical analysis. In other words, AI is beginning to perform tasks that used to require advanced degrees and years of training. AI systems aren’t progressing in a straight line, they’re compounding. Each new version tends to improve rapidly because it learns from larger data sets and more usage. Leaders in the field describe this moment as standing in front of a powerful wave that’s already forming offshore. It hasn’t fully hit yet, but it’s coming, and fast. From an economic standpoint, this raises two big questions. First, how many jobs will be displaced or reshaped? And second, how quickly can workers and companies adapt? History tells us that new technologies eventually create new industries and opportunities. The Industrial Revolution eliminated certain types of work but created entirely new sectors. The internet did the same. The difference today is the speed. If AI can absorb certain types of cognitive work… | Read More »
Author: Christian Peterson
The rise of the individual investor
Since the 1980s, financial firms on Wall Street have increasingly relied on machines and algorithms to streamline trading and enhance their returns. Firms like Blackrock, State Street, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and others invested heavily in powerful computer hardware. They then aggressively recruited the top PhDs in math, logic, and computer science to design software to optimize trading results. By the 2010s up to 70% of all the trades on the New York and NASDAQ stock exchanges were executed by machine algorithms, with no human input other than the employee who wrote the code. As you might imagine, these firms are now using even faster machines, Artificial Intelligence, to assess risk and find inefficiencies in markets that they can exploit to gain a competitive edge. Further, these institutions are leveraging billions of dollars to make trades that move the market in one direction or the other. Given the size and influence of these institutional investors, it would seem that the small, retail investor can do nothing other than go along for the ride, hoping the big players don’t lead them off a cliff. But something strange happened as these machines became more powerful and ubiquitous. They gave the retail investor more influence than they ever had before. What began as a fringe phenomenon during the meme-stock mania of 2021 – when retail traders rapidly drove up shares of companies like GameStop and AMC – has now evolved into a more sustained and influential presence in markets. Analysts and market participants are saying that this shift is not temporary but indicative of a structural change in market participation. Retail investors, many of them day-traders or everyday savers, contributed a record amount of capital into stocks, ETFs, options, and other, less traditional, instruments during the year. According to a December 31, 2025 article in the Wall Street Journal, retail trades reached approximately 22% of overall trading volume in October, the highest level… | Read More »