InvestorAi’s Vani - India's First GenAI Virtual Assistant for Retail Investors

 InvestorAi ( AI products produced by Bridgeweave) is an AI-powered equity investment platform that uses advanced AI to power stock recommendations for investors. It is a SEBI-authorized platform and in August 2024 it raised Rs 80 crores in a Series A round from well-known investor Ashish Kacholia, Founder, Lucky Investment Managers, and his associates.

Founded in 2018, the company says it has a singular, outcome-focused mission - to use AI to produce winning investment outcomes for GenZ, Millennials, and other digital investors. Its products use cutting-edge AI models and robotics to create stock recommendations for the Indian market. These recommendations are then packaged into easy-to-use investment solutions that combine recommendation and delivery into a one-click user experience.

InvestorAi says its products are currently available through some of the most reputed names in the broking industry including HDFC Securities, Geojit, PL, JM Financial, IIFL, Yes Securities, 5 Paisa, and Axis Securities.

In an interview with CIOL, Bruce Keith, CEO & Co-founder, InvestorAi, talks about his company’s play in the rapidly evolving financial landscape and about Vani, India's first GenAI virtual assistant designed to support retail investors in making informed decisions within the listed entities space. Excerpts.

InvestorAi is bringing AI to retail investors. What’s the inspiration behind Vani, and what unique features set it apart from other investment tools available today?

When we set out, our vision was to use advanced tech to create better outcomes for investors and level the playing field between DIY investors and institutions. We built an AI platform to deliver that. As popularity has grown, more retail investors want to be able to access this and we felt that a conversational agent would help guide them through the journey by providing education, helping them explore the different products, and then importantly helping explain what has happened after they have invested. Unlike standard LLMs, we can manage and control a significant part of the input data, increasing the relevance and accuracy of the output.

There is a perception that AI-driven investing as something only for experts or institutions. How does Vani simplify takes this to everyday users, especially newcomers navigating the stock market for the first time?

Hedge funds and other institutions have used AI for over two decades. Advances in neural networks and reductions in computing costs have brought the price point to a place where retail investors can benefit and our InvestorAi platform delivers that. Vani provides guidance to people who want to know more and then helps them understand the options. Demystifying advanced investments should give investors the information to decide whether it is for them and even more importantly be able to explain what is going on after they have started on the investment journey.

On the integration of Vani with major Indian brokerage platforms - how have retail investors and firms reacted to this collaboration?

Vani is part of a wider platform and she continues to learn and improve. The beauty is being able to ask dumb or sophisticated questions and the answer comes with no judgement. Whether someone chooses to invest afterward is of less importance than allowing them to ask whatever they want.

DeepSeek’s drove the point that AI progress doesn’t always need massive funding. How does InvestorAi balance affordability with cutting-edge AI, and where do you see India fitting into the global AI finance landscape?

We are proud of what we have achieved on DeepSeek like budgets and it’s all been built in India. Sometimes in life, you make the best decisions when you are constrained – DeepSeek’s constraint was chip availability ours was capital. When you don’t have much of something you tend to make better decisions with what you do have. As to the wider sector, we are in the very early days and the announcements in the Union Budget are important in encouraging continual innovation. India is well placed with good access to capital and talent, but where it can stretch ahead is its sheer scale and using DPI to create the right protocols to make it easy for innovators to take off.

As India’s first GenAI service for retail investors, how do you see AI reshaping how people approach decide stock market investing in the future?

AI has been around a long time and different variants have been available to investors in different guises. We have developed both an AI platform for stock picking and creating model portfolios and equipped the investor with a conversational agent to guide them. There is potential to do so much more, but understandably regulation has to catch up. It is a tricky balance for SEBI to allow investors more access while providing the industry with guardrails.

What’s next for InvestorAi? Are you eyeing global expansion, new AI-driven tools, or partnerships with international players to redefine retail investing?

We have been approached by domestic and overseas players and will look at these possible partnerships, but we are just scratching the surface in India and demand for new product will keep us busy this year. India allows you to build for scale and if you can price it on this basis then you have a genuinely disruptive offering to export.