The Harvard economics PhD whiz who is teaching generative AI to invest for everyone
Published on CNBC.com
June 6, 2023
Jan Szilagyi is the co-founder of Toggle AI, an AI-fintech startup that uses machine learning to turn institutional-grade data into insights for investors of all stripes. Szilagyi spent most of his career with Stanley Druckenmiller at Duquesne Capital. He was co-CIO of global macro at Lombard Odier and also managed portfolios at Fortress.
Szilagyi has the record for the fastest-ever Harvard Economics Ph.D. (2.5 years), studying under Ken Rogoff. In addition to his economics Ph.D., Szilagyi holds BA and MA degrees in mathematics and economics from Yale.
Szilagyi recently shared some insights about the potential impact of artificial intelligence on investors and advisors ahead of the CNBC Financial Advisor Summit on June 15.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
CNBC: In your mission statement, you state that Toggle was founded on the idea that “investors of all shapes and sizes should have help finding good ideas — making the latest investment technology and insights available to all.” Can you unpack that for us? What is Toggle AI?
Szilagyi: Toggle is a generative AI startup that sits squarely at the intersection of finance and artificial intelligence. We are teaching large language models [LLMs] like ChatGPT how to invest. And instead of hallucinating or going rogue, we teach LLMs to fail gracefully and only stick to data-backed answers. Currently, we’re working on a collaboration with Microsoft’s Cognitive search team to improve access to investment research. By making generative AI easy to access, we believe every investor – institutional traders, hedge fund managers, financial advisors, and retail – will have the resources to ultimately get more time back in their day.
CNBC: Tell us more about the Toggle AI origin story. What were the circumstances that led you and the other founders to believe you had a product that could fill an unmet need for investors?
Szilagyi: Right after I finished my Ph.D. in economics, I went to work for Stanley Druckenmiller at Duquesne [Capital] before eventually becoming co-CIO of Global Macro at Lombard Odier. This is where I met my future co-founder Giuseppe Sette and together we dreamed up an AI-powered market analytics platform that we could chat with as we would a junior analyst, monitor the markets around the clock for us and answer standard investment questions. This idea was really born from our day-to-day work needs where we saw the struggle of keeping up with the ever-mounting piles of financial data.
Toggle AI was really born from observing the ever-mounting flow of financial data that we needed to track. Why not leverage technology to recognize important events and conduct financial analyses for us?
Druckenmiller was among the first who recognized the value of what we were building and offered to support our efforts as our first investor. Thanks to his support, Toggle AI took off with a mission to provide every investor and advisor with powerful AI tools in an easy-to-navigate, chat interface.