Are the trading AI Agents scam?

I recently came across a viral video about a startup offering AI Agents for trading. The pitch looked exciting; the company provides automated research, daily intelligence, and event-driven analysis. On the surface, it sounds like the future of finance.

But here’s the catch: the solution seems entirely plug-and-play, with little clarity on whether it can be adapted to a firm’s unique strategy. In trading, that’s not a minor detail, but it’s a dealbreaker. The company also claims it is “trusted” by professionals from top financial institutions, but without transparency, such endorsements are difficult to validate.

At the same time, I found Andrew Lo’s (MIT finance professor) lecture where he says: “When a lot of people try to predict patterns of the market, you don’t have patterns; you have randomness. The moment you take advantage of this pattern, the pattern changes.” Thus, if every user fed the same signals, the supposed advantage becomes an illusion. Instead of differentiation, you get herd behavior.

For clarity: I’m a proponent of AI Agents. I build and use them myself, and I strongly believe in their potential.

Therefore, the real potential of AI Agents in trading lies in bespoke design and customization: aligning them with a firm’s strategy and know-how, testing hypotheses, and integrating continuous feedback loops. That’s how AI shifts from a generic add-on to a true competitive asset.

The takeaway? AI Agents are powerful, but one-size-fits-all solutions can mislead. Especially for non-technical users, it’s easy to fall for the promise of speed and simplicity. No one would hire a rookie and leave them unsupervised; the same goes for AI. For senior leaders, the message is clear: treat AI Agents as strategic tools to be shaped, not shortcuts to be bought. Without oversight, they risk slowing adoption instead of accelerating it.