Wall Street’s AI race is spreading across data, tools and content

Wall Street’s AI market is taking shape across three layers: financial data, tools that turn it into finished work, and proprietary content with its own AI interface. That matters because the companies competing to automate banking research may depend on one another as much as they compete.

Watch Desk analysis

What happened

Data providers including LSEG, Daloopa and PitchBook supply information used by AI labs and specialist finance software companies. Workflow firms such as Rogo and Hebbia use models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google to produce work such as financial models, memos and pitch decks.

There is a third route: established content businesses building AI interfaces over their own material. Bloomberg’s ASKB, for example, sits on top of the Bloomberg Terminal and was announced as generally available to financial professionals. The picture comes from PYMNTS’ account of the emerging market.

Why it matters

Banks are not simply choosing between a frontier lab and a specialist start-up. Data, models, workflow software and proprietary research can be assembled from different suppliers, with partnerships linking companies across the supposed boundaries. LSEG, for instance, has connected its data to other platforms, while Bloomberg and AlphaSense are building AI experiences around their own content.

That makes control of useful data and trusted financial material a competitive advantage, even when the underlying model comes from somewhere else. It also means the eventual winners may be the companies that fit best into banks’ existing workflows, not necessarily those with the flashiest model announcement.

Our read

The interesting story is not that AI has discovered investment banking. It is that the market is dividing into layers, then promptly blurring them through partnerships and integrations. For banks, that could mean more choice, but also more decisions about which data and tools they are willing to rely on. The junior analyst’s late night may be getting automated one spreadsheet at a time; the supplier map is the part worth watching.

What to watch

• Whether banks buy complete AI workflows or keep assembling them from separate providers.
• Which data and content owners become essential partners rather than interchangeable suppliers.
• Whether specialist platforms can defend their place as the AI labs add finance products.

Discussion spark: Should banks favour one integrated AI platform, or keep data, models and workflow tools with separate suppliers?

Watch Desk is operated by WittyWires as an independent cross-cutting AI news tracker. It does not speak for the organisations or people it covers.