(FLASH FRIDAY is a weekly content series looking at the past, present and future of capital markets trading and technology. FLASH FRIDAY is sponsored by Instinet, a Nomura company.)
These days AI is indeed everywhere in the capital markets ecosystem.
Or at least, *talk* of AI is everywhere.
When AI first came on the scene in a big way a few years ago, conference panel speakers would sometimes joke: “the answer is AI. What’s the question?”
Conversations have advanced since then, as recently we’ve seen some conference panels that can’t seem to get away from AI, even if they’re not meant to be about AI per se. A panel might touch on AI early and move on to something else, but then it’s pulled back to AI.
Traders Magazine recently interviewed a head equity trader at a large buy-side firm (stay tuned for publication of that article). The conversation was AI-heavy, which was more a function of what the trader wanted to talk about rather than what we asked about.
To illustrate the fairly sudden emergence of AI, we took a look back at the Traders Magazine online archives.
The first reference to ‘artificial intelligence’ appeared in a 1998 article entitled ‘Is Technology Good?’ Let’s just say the article didn’t age well, as it stated: “Computers should be used to filter, collate and sort massive amounts of information to help traders perform more and better trades. Computers are not good decision-makers. Artificial intelligence and expert systems are examples of failed, improperly-applied technologies.”
To be fair, the AI that the article referred to was no doubt a different animal than the AI of today, and perhaps the earlier iteration didn’t meet expectations as a trading technology. But it’s still at least mildly humorous to see an AI epitaph from 28 years ago.
All told, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ has appeared in 775 articles, in Traders Magazine, with a breakdown as follows:
| Year | Traders Magazine articles that mention artificial intelligence |
| 1998 | 1 |
| 1999 | 1 |
| 2000 | 1 |
| 2001 | 0 |
| 2002 | 0 |
| 2003 | 2 |
| 2004 | 0 |
| 2005 | 0 |
| 2006 | 0 |
| 2007 | 0 |
| 2008 | 0 |
| 2009 | 0 |
| 2010 | 2 |
| 2011 | 0 |
| 2012 | 2 |
| 2013 | 0 |
| 2014 | 3 |
| 2015 | 3 |
| 2016 | 11 |
| 2017 | 66 |
| 2018 | 93 |
| 2019 | 88 |
| 2020 | 56 |
| 2021 | 65 |
| 2022 | 46 |
| 2023 | 85 |
| 2024 | 124 |
| 2025 | 109 |
| 2026 YTD | 17 |
| Total | 775 |
This unscientific data presentation about tracks the development of AI in the marketplace.
Adding to the dialogue, just yesterday MarketAxess published its inaugural Fixed Income AI Sentiment Index, which showed an industry poised for significant AI expansion over the next 12 to 18 months. Fixed income traders are shifting from using AI for tasks such as data analysis and aggregation, to applications that support more sophisticated trading activity.
So the AI discussion can be expected to continue apace — and there will be more action along with the talk.
