Why Superhero’s first foray into AI is ASX, company reports

An Australian share-trading platform is using AI to digest company reports and churn out single paragraph summaries. Here’s why they think it’ll make a difference.

Superhero is using generative AI to reproduce company reports and ASX announcements as brief summaries.

Share-trading platform Superhero’s first foray into artificial ­intelligence is not a curated investment package nor a daily stock pick but rather something a little more simple.

The company is playing it safe, using generative AI to reproduce company reports and ASX announcements as brief summaries, that are often no longer than a ­single paragraph.

The move, which has been in the works for the past five months, was a way to test the use of AI while getting around strict laws surrounding financial advice, according to chief technology officer Wayne Baskin.

Superhero customers were often hungry for information but were often left bewildered by long, drawn out reports that could over-explain or make simple announcements seem more complex than they actually were, he said.

“One thing we’ve noticed is that with a lot of these complex announcements, when our investors see them, they ask what does this even mean? It’s full of matter to the tables, sometimes they’re very long and so we thought, how can we use AI to make a better ­experience for our investors?” Mr Baskin explained.

The new tool could break down things such as change of beneficial ownership with context surrounding why it was important.

“The summaries are very quick and (in this instance will) name the individual person and also sometimes name the shares they’ve gone from and to so I think it’s saving people a lot of time but also educating investors,” he said.

As for accuracy, Superhero is working on what Mr Baskin describes as a thumbs-up and thumbs-down type of response for customers which would allow customers to flag summaries they think might not be correct.

Each summary of an ASX announcement will be the same for every customer and will be generated on demand when they click on that announcement via the news tab in the Superhero app.

The move is the first of what will likely be several involving AI for Superhero. Mr Baskin signalled the platform was looking at the use of AI to analyse stocks and exchange-traded funds, but said there were certain limitations when it came to financial advice.

“Obviously, we’ve got to look at whether it will come across as advice. There’s that line there where we’ve got to look at the regulation and the compliance and that’s why we haven’t come to market with anything like that right now,” he said.

“When you start taking an investor or a customer’s personal circumstances into account, that could be deemed advice and we don’t provide advice at Superhero.”

Superhero has grown by over 35,000 customers since May this year, with its latest recording showing 275,000 on the platform.

While the platform hadn’t seen a reduction in the amounts being invested across the stock market, Mr Baskin said in some cases investors were now more cautious.

“There’s not that hurried event which we probably saw back in Covid times,” he said. “People are a lot more thoughtful now and we’re trying to promote education to our investors.”

As for where customers and investors were putting their money, it was largely in exchange traded funds, he said.

“We’re seeing a lot more investment ETFs and a lot more investment in some of the blue chips than we saw before. And we’re also seeing a lot of growth now US products as well,” he said.

Superhero customers also weren’t moving stocks as fast as before. “We wouldn’t say they’re investing less, they’re just investing for more long term,” Mr Baskin said.