The Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative (WAIAI), in partnership with Finance at Wharton, is pleased to announce the launch of the Wharton AI in Finance Lab (WAFL). Led by Faculty Director Winston Wei Dou, associate professor of finance, the Lab brings together expertise in finance, AI, and analytics to advance research, education, and practice.
The Wharton AI in Finance Lab will serve as a hub for studying how AI is transforming financial markets and decision-making. Its work spans four areas: advancing frontier research on AI in finance; building AI-ready financial data and infrastructure for training and testing financial AI agents; strengthening finance education; and connecting students and faculty with practitioners working at the forefront of AI-enabled finance.
“Our vision for the Wharton AI in Finance Lab is to create a place where faculty, students, and industry leaders can examine how AI is changing finance and help shape what comes next,” says Professor Dou. “By bringing together rigorous research, shared AI-ready financial data and infrastructure, innovative teaching, and close engagement with practitioners, the Lab will prepare the Wharton community to lead at the AI-finance frontier.”
The Lab’s research agenda addresses a defining question for the future of finance: What can increasingly autonomous AI systems do, and how will they reshape financial markets? Initial projects examine how reinforcement-learning agents trade, make markets, manage portfolios, and interact strategically with other market participants, and how these interactions affect liquidity, price discovery, stability, and welfare. Researchers at the Lab are also building financial AI agents that combine the reasoning capabilities of large language models with evidence retrieval and analytical tools to make complex financial decisions more timely, reliable, interpretable, and auditable
A second priority for the Lab is building the infrastructure that makes rigorous research and teaching possible. The World Synthetic Markets project is creating controlled, repeatable financial-market simulations that allow researchers to study emerging market dynamics and stress-test AI strategies outside live markets. In partnership with Wharton Research Data Services, Penn Libraries, and Wharton Computing, the Lab is also developing integrated, point-in-time datasets that connect traditional financial information with business text, products, patents, supply chains, brands, networks, and individual decision-makers.
The Lab will bring these advances into the classroom and create new opportunities for students to apply them. Through courses such as AI and Data Science in Finance, research projects, events, and engagement with industry, students will learn how to frame financial problems for AI, evaluate model performance and limitations, and understand the risks that autonomous systems can create.
“For generations, Wharton has helped define the study and practice of finance,” says Joao Gomes, senior vice dean of research, centers, and academic initiatives. “As AI begins to reshape financial markets, institutions, and decision-making, the field needs the same combination of rigorous scholarship and practical relevance that has long distinguished Wharton. The Wharton AI in Finance Lab positions us to build on that legacy and lead this next frontier.”
Professor Dou is joined by Senior Affiliated Faculty Itay Goldstein, Joel S. Ehrenkranz Family Professor, professor of finance, professor of economics, chairperson of the Finance Department, and academic director of the Wharton Future of Finance Initiative; and Michael R. Roberts, William H. Lawrence Professor, professor of finance, and vice dean of the Wharton MBA Program.
“The Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative incubates research and thought leadership where AI intersects with the disciplines that shape business and society,” says Eric Bradlow, vice dean of AI & analytics at Wharton. “Finance is an essential addition to that portfolio. We are excited to support a Lab that brings Wharton’s extraordinary finance expertise into the Initiative and creates new opportunities for research, teaching, and industry collaboration.”
Visit the Wharton AI in Finance Lab to explore its research, teaching, data initiatives, and opportunities to engage.
Announcement originally published on Wharton AI and Analytics.
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