HOUSTON-Robinhood Markets helped usher in a new generation of investors by making it easy to buy stocks on a smartphone. The next investing revolution, its executives said, will be led by the bots.

Artificial intelligence was front and center at Robinhood's annual event for its most-active users. Holding court at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, the brokerage's executives unveiled a slew of new tools and services. Among the most significant: an in-app AI agent that can answer questions about the market, build an investment strategy from scratch and eventually place trades while you sleep, work or otherwise turn away from the screen.

So-called agentic trading tools will give everyday traders capabilities previously reserved for hedge funds and other Wall Street pros, Chief Executive Vlad Tenev said.

Robinhood agents can engage in a conversation based on simple written prompts, conduct research and trade automatically. For example, users can ask their agent to help analyze how computing costs might affect certain companies, then open a position in their stocks based on a series of follow-up questions.

In another use case, traders might deliver a more-specific command to their agents: "Run the wheel strategy," a popular stock-options trade that aims to generate income by selling cash-secured puts and covered calls. The latter example will be possible with a coming feature called Loops, which will allow Robinhood agents to run a strategy on repeat, even when users aren't logged on.

Robinhood's launch is part of an industrywide push to embed AI tools in how everyday Americans research, plan and execute their investments. In decades past, mom-and-pop traders had to call their broker and pay a hefty commission on every trade. Now, leaders say, agents will become the driverless cars of Wall Street: Enabling investors to trade stocks, options, bitcoin and prediction-market contracts even when they are not paying attention.

Financial firms are also grappling with other ways AI will transform their businesses. Last week, shares of companies like Charles Schwab, LPL Financial and JP Morgan slumped on the concern that agents-such as Meta's Muse-could be used to automatically redirect customers' cash toward accounts with higher yields. That could threaten a vital source of revenue for banks and brokerages that rely on that cash for cheap funding.

Earlier this year, Robinhood allowed users to connect third-party AI assistants such as Claude or OpenClaw to an investing account. Other brokerages have launched similar tools. Some tech-savvy investors built custom sets of agents that functioned like mini money managers, crunching numbers and monitoring the market like a team of analysts at a hedge fund.

It remains to be seen how eagerly individual investors will hand over full control to the bots. Robinhood said that more than 150,000 customers have opened agentic trading accounts so far. But agents can only access funds in those dedicated accounts, and users can opt to manually approve each trade.

Robinhood also said it would launch 24/7 trading hours for a select group of U.S. stocks, freeing its agents to execute users' trades at any moment. And the company will make perpetual futures available to U.S. customers in the coming months. So-called perps are a type of derivative that let traders bet around the clock and pile on leverage that amplifies their potential gains and losses.

Robinhood skyrocketed to national prominence during the 2021 meme-stock frenzy, when its easy-to-use app helped usher in a wave of trading during the pandemic. As the hype faded, the company sometimes struggled to find its footing: In the year after Robinhood went public, its stock shed nearly 80% of its value.

Facing these crossroads, Tenev doubled down on the active traders that played the market more frequently-and more aggressively-than other customers. The strategy paid off, and the company is now valued above $100 billion. Over the last couple of years, Robinhood has expanded into social media, banking, prediction markets and premium credit cards.