Professor Jungpil Hahn, Director of the NUS FinTech Lab, spoke at the UBS Quant, Evidence Lab and HOLT Conference, an extraordinary gathering of institutional investors and quantitative researchers shaping the future of finance.
The talk, “Agentic AI in Quant Finance: Finding Alpha in a Market of Machines,” explored how self-directed, continuously learning AI systems are redefining alpha generation and the new strategic and systemic questions they raise when algorithms start trading with algorithms.
Three fronts of opportunity were discussed:
- Autonomous signal discovery and strategy evolution
- Adaptive execution in dynamic markets
- Governance as the new alpha-preservation edge
As AI systems grow more agentic, the challenge for investors isn’t just to deploy faster models; it’s to design for emergence and govern for trust. The firms that master that balance will lead the next phase of quantitative finance.