MUNICH — European investors will be able to use artificial intelligence assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Grok to analyze their portfolios, create savings plans and prepare trades through Scalable Capital, bringing generative AI more directly into retail investing.
The Munich-based digital bank and brokerage has launched what it calls “Agentic Investing,” which allows customers to connect their Scalable accounts to supported AI assistants through Model Context Protocol, or MCP, an open standard that allows AI systems to interact with external applications and data, according to Fortune.
Scalable told Reuters it is the first European bank to open its investment platform to major AI assistants, Fortune reported.
Scalable Chief Product Officer Alexander Siepp told Fortune the technology could allow customers to begin their investment activities within an AI assistant while completing transactions through Scalable’s regulated banking infrastructure.
“It certainly creates a level-playing field,” Siepp said. “Access to information and to compute and to intelligence is now available — really — literally in your pocket, 24/7.”
Customers could, for example, ask an AI assistant to identify stocks that have declined for several consecutive months and monitor them. The AI could then prepare an order based on the investor’s instructions.
Just a Few Prompts
“It’s just a few prompts,” Siepp told Fortune.
The AI cannot independently execute transactions. Customers must approve trades and savings plans before they are completed, and AI assistants cannot make payments or withdraw money from Scalable accounts, Fortune reported.
Siepp said the connections use security measures similar to Scalable’s existing applications, including strong customer authentication.
According to Fortune, Scalable, founded in 2014, has more than €60 billion in client assets and more than one-million customers, primarily in Germany and Austria, according to Fortune. It also operates in markets including Italy, Spain, France and the Netherlands.
Questions Remain About AI Investment Decisions
The expansion comes as researchers continue to examine how effectively AI systems can make investment decisions.
Fortune cited a June study from Elm Wealth in which researchers tested Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok by providing the models with historical Wall Street Journal front pages containing potentially market-moving information without revealing subsequent market performance.
Across about 200 sessions, Claude outperformed human participants 76% of the time and ChatGPT did so in 63% of sessions. Grok beat human participants in 51% and Gemini in 43%, according to the research.
However, researchers found the AI systems generally took excessive risks when determining the size of investment positions.
The study concluded that the models performed relatively well in deciding what to invest in but struggled with how much capital to put at risk, potentially exposing investors to large losses.
Siepp acknowledged to Fortune that AI-assisted investing remains unproven and said adoption could vary among Scalable’s customers.
“Whether you end up finding the holy grail together with your AI assistant on high returns and low risks or not, I think that remains to be seen,” he told Fortune.
