Webull working with regulators as AI trading evolves

Investing.com -- Webull is in active dialogue with regulators as it lets customers connect AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Grok to their brokerage accounts to place trades, the online broker's U.S. chief executive told Investing.com this week.

Anthony Denier, Webull's group president and U.S. CEO, stated that a central question in those talks was who is acting when an AI agent trades.

"One of the questions we're working through is the distinction between an agent carrying out a customer's instruction and an agent making an investment decision itself," he said. "Those are very different scenarios from a regulatory standpoint, and we want to make sure we’re moving forward cautiously."

Through its Agentic Trading Platform and its Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, Webull lets investors connect AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok to their Webull accounts and use natural-language commands to access account information, market data and, for supported products, place, modify or cancel trades.

However, the company is taking a measured approach, Denier remarked, with controls that let customers require an order preview, cap order size or value, restrict trading to chosen symbols or keep access read-only.

Asked where responsibility sits if an assistant misreads an instruction, he said those guardrails were built to limit the risk, but that the client remained accountable.

"The underlying responsibility for the investment decision still sits with the investor," he stated, "but the way they interact with their brokerage account is going to become much more intuitive."

While the connector rollout is still early, Denier noted that the level of interest in using natural language to interact with a brokerage account has been “encouraging.”

Even so, the shift to AI is not expected to diminish the visibility of brokers to customers. ”Investors will continue to need a trusted financial institution behind the technology, particularly when it comes to their assets, execution, market data and the controls around their account,” commented Denier.

He added: “Our view is that Webull should be wherever the investor wants to interact with their investments. If that’s directly through the Webull app, great. If it’s through a natural-language interface, we want to make sure Webull is providing the infrastructure, data and capabilities behind that experience.”

"We've gone from phone calls to websites to mobile apps, and natural language is the next step in that progression," he concluded.

Original Article

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