BlackRock Lab for AI Focuses on a Stock-Lending Platform, Alt Data Sets and Automating Boring Tasks

BlackRock‘s Chief Engineer and Head of the Aladdin Product Group (APG), Jody Kochansky, in a blog last spring wrote about „the promise of AI and what it means to BlackRock.“ His topics included how the firm already is using AI today, such as superior insights following the explosion of unstructured data, AI‘s ability to enhance and accelerate human learning, and a clearer picture into risk (via AI in Aladdin).

As we reported, BlackRock around the same time set up the BlackRock Lab for AI in Palo Alto as part of its „Tech 2020“ plan, headed by Samsung Professor in the Stanford School of Engineering and BlackRock advisor Stephen Boyd; and a new ‚Data Science‘ center, run by Sherry Marcus (ex-Millennium Management Chief Data Analytics Officer) and Rachel Schutt (ex-News Corp Chief Data Scientist).

AI Labs now has over 30 data engineers and keeps hiring. Job listings talk about the fascinating problems data scientists and engineers to solve, for investments, sales, marketing, product development, client/user experience and operating.

Among other projects, the staff is focused on a stock-lending platform, exploiting alternative data sets, and automating repetitive and boring tasks.