Artificial intelligence is already becoming an integral part of how investors evaluate opportunities and execute strategies. And as the technology advances, investors are ready to give AI much more responsibility than many people would assume.
Our survey of 1,400 U.S. crypto traders found that 70% would be comfortable allowing AI to manage their portfolios autonomously, either with full discretion or within risk parameters they set themselves. That willingness to delegate greater decision-making authority to AI raises an important question: What does it take for investors to trust these systems with so much responsibility?
Here, the findings become more nuanced. Across every generation in the survey, the biggest driver of trust was knowing users could receive real-time notifications and revoke an AI’s permissions whenever they chose.
Trust Hinges On Maintaining Control
Those responses add another dimension to the conversation around autonomous technology. While investors appear increasingly comfortable giving AI greater responsibility, they still place a premium on transparency and oversight and retaining ultimate control.
That balance matters because the conversation around AI in financial services has often centered on whether automation will replace human decision-making. The survey points to a more nuanced model, where investors may be willing to let AI act independently, but without giving up their ability to set boundaries or step in when necessary.
After all, autonomy does not have to mean giving up control. Crypto traders are willing to let AI handle repetitive tasks, analyze information more efficiently, and execute strategies faster – all while retaining visibility into its decisions and the ability to intervene. This mirrors where the wider investment industry is landing. Regulatory and legal commentary increasingly frames AI portfolio tools around human-in-the-loop oversight rather than full autonomy.
This is not a theoretical position for us. Internally, more than 75% of our 1,000-plus weekly product releases and pull requests are now developed with the support of Oli, our own AI development platform. And every one of them still requires human review and approval before it reaches production. The lesson we have taken from running AI at that scale is the same one investors are voicing in our survey: speed and autonomy are only valuable when a human retains the final say.
Generational Differences Shaping AI Adoption
The survey also highlighted how generational differences are shaping this shift. Gen Z and Millennial traders were more than three times as likely as Baby Boomers to say they would give AI full, unsupervised control of their portfolios (38% and 37% versus 11%).
The generational divide extends beyond portfolio management. A quarter of Gen Z and Millennial respondents said they trust AI-generated trading recommendations more than advice from a human financial advisor, roughly double the rate among Gen X and Baby Boomers.
These differences likely reflect familiarity with AI-driven technologies. Younger investors have spent much of their lives interacting with algorithm-powered tools, from personalized content feeds to navigation apps and digital assistants.
For those cohorts, AI has become an everyday decision-making tool, making its expansion into investing feel like a natural progression rather than a leap. As younger generations become a larger share of the investing population, these expectations are likely to influence how financial institutions design AI-powered products and services. Features that emphasize transparency and user control may become just as important as the underlying technology itself.
AI as Part of the Investment Workflow
The shift toward a more active role for AI is already visible in crypto, where AI tools are becoming part of how investors engage with the market.
More than half of respondents said they use AI tools for crypto research or trading several times a week, while more than three-quarters reported using a general AI chatbot to research a crypto investment within the past three months.
These findings suggest AI is evolving from a research tool into a more integrated part of the investment process. As familiarity grows, investors appear increasingly comfortable allowing AI to take on more responsibility while retaining ultimate control over how and when it operates.
AI as a Competitive Differentiator
That growing role could also influence where people choose to invest. Our survey found that 79% of respondents would consider switching crypto exchanges for access to better AI-powered trading tools.
Of course, trading fees, liquidity, and product offerings will remain key to how exchanges compete. But increasingly, the quality of their AI experiences – including transparency, customization, user controls, and clear communication about how automated decisions are made – will become another important differentiator.
Meeting that bar is expensive, and platforms should be candid about what it costs. At OKX, we invest roughly $6 million to $8 million per month across multiple leading foundation model providers, and we built Oli to bring those frontier models into a single environment for our
product managers and engineers. We have also launched OKX.AI to advance a broader vision of the “one-person company,” empowering individuals and small teams to build, innovate and operate at a scale that used to require an organization. That level of commitment is what it takes to be genuinely AI-native rather than AI-adjacent, and investors are increasingly able to tell the difference.
The exchanges and financial platforms that stand out will be those that pair powerful AI with transparency, customization, and clear safeguards that give investors confidence in how automation is working on their behalf.
The Future of AI Investing Depends on Trust
For AI to take on a larger role in investing, continued advances in its capabilities will need to be matched by confidence that the technology is transparent and designed with investors’ interests in mind.
These questions are already drawing regulatory attention, with U.S. lawmakers asking the SEC to clarify how existing securities rules apply to agentic trading. As AI moves from helping investors make decisions to increasingly acting on their behalf, the industry has an opportunity to work alongside regulators to help define what responsible autonomy should look like. The next competitive frontier will be building AI systems that can do more while giving investors clearer visibility and the ability to step in when it matters.
