BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Generative artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming integral to how retail investors research companies, with nearly half of those surveyed saying they have used it to process financial information or inform investment decisions.

Joe Croom , assistant professor of accounting at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business , and his co-authors analyzed more than 410,000 investor queries to a major brokerage’s GenAI chatbot and surveyed nearly 2,200 investors.

“Investors most often use GenAI to help make sense of complex financial information and better understand what is driving market movements,” Croom said. “Investors initially use GenAI to help screen stocks and perform high-level company…