JPMorgan: 53% of institutional traders predict AI will be the most influential technology for trading in the next three years; 72% have no plans to trade crypto
Traders are betting artificial intelligence and machine learning will have the biggest impact on financial markets in the coming years.
Context & Ripple Effects
JPMorgan’s survey captured an early institutional preference for AI and machine learning over crypto as a trading technology priority. That preference was followed by JPMorgan’s AI-focused hiring push, with the bank advertising 3,651 AI-related roles over a February-to-April 2023 period.
The broader coverage shows adoption moving beyond sentiment: roughly half of hedge funds were using algorithmic technology in FX by 2024, while later coverage describes retail traders deploying AI agents for execution.
First-order effects
- AI and machine-learning vendors gain a clearer demand signal from institutional trading desks, while crypto trading providers face a surveyed customer base in which 72% reported no plans to trade crypto.
- JPMorgan’s trading and technology teams have a survey-backed rationale to prioritize AI-related capability over crypto-trading expansion.
Second-order effects
- Banks competing with JPMorgan for quantitative and AI talent face greater pressure to staff trading-focused AI work, consistent with the subsequent concentration of AI-related job openings at banks.
- As algorithmic tools become more common in FX, hedge funds and trading venues must compete on execution technology and workflow integration rather than simply offering market access.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward trading automation becoming a core capability across institutional workflows and, later, retail-facing interfaces, shifting advantage toward firms that can distribute dependable AI tooling into execution.
- Crypto’s position in institutional trading may remain more dependent on specific client demand than AI, which is being adopted as a general-purpose layer for analysis and execution.
The trend: Financial-market technology is shifting from crypto experimentation toward AI-enabled and algorithmic trading infrastructure across institutional and retail channels.