Artificial intelligence has become one of the defining investment themes and value drivers across global equity markets, playing a strategic role in enhancing investment research, portfolio construction and benchmark design across both exchange-traded funds and active management.
3AI is at the forefront of this emerging field, delivering AI-powered alpha intelligence across more than 20,000 listed equities globally. Its investment framework combines forward-looking alpha forecasts with stock-level insights derived from nearly 400 underlying factors, helping investors understand how company fundamentals, market conditions and business-cycle dynamics shape expected returns.
“At 3AI, we provide AI-powered alpha intelligence for investing,” says Hassan Salamony, co-founder and chief operating officer at 3AI.
The firm covers the majority of investable public companies globally and is increasingly deploying its alpha intelligence framework across ETFs, indices, structured products and institutional active-management workflows. Applications include research augmentation, stock selection and portfolio construction support for institutional investment teams.
Bringing 3AI alpha intelligence to ETFs
The 3AI team draws on experience across machine learning, quantitative investing and alpha research, including the development of AI-driven investment strategies, trading technologies for global banks and asset managers, and intelligence platforms for the insurance sector.
3AI was established to address the limitations of traditional linear factor investing, applying machine learning to deliver more adaptive, forward-looking and explainable alpha intelligence across global equity markets.
Salamony explains that 3AI’s technology enables the construction of transparent, rules-based investment strategies powered by forward-looking forecasts. These include AI-enhanced versions of globally recognised equity benchmarks, developed in partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices, alongside bespoke index and portfolio solutions tailored to specific investor requirements. “We have created AI-enhanced benchmark strategies spanning broad equity exposure, sector rotation and intelligent portfolio tilting,” he says.
As a result, Salamony says, these solutions are increasingly being adopted both within ETFs and at the index construction level itself. “We see alpha intelligence as enhancing the existing ETF ecosystem rather than replacing it,” he emphasises. “The objective is to provide a transparent investment intelligence layer that can support more adaptive and forward-looking investment strategies.”
According to Salamony, “there isn’t any secret sauce or unconventional data behind the models. We work primarily with widely available financial, market and economic data, but apply AI in a way that enables the system to better understand context, relationships and the conditions under which different signals matter. The focus is on extracting deeper intelligence from existing information to generate more robust forecasts for future excess returns”.
3AI institutional adoption and partnerships
3AI’s solutions are designed to enhance existing public markets investing and ETF infrastructure rather than compete with it, an approach that is increasingly resonating with institutional partners. “We now have a growing family of AI-powered indices in partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices,” says Salamony. “These include both AI-enhanced versions of established benchmark strategies and tailored index solutions designed around specific investor objectives.”
According to Salamony, both the technology and the underlying AI-enhanced indices are increasingly being adopted by ETF issuers and institutional investors across a range of investment applications.
As one example, 3AI has partnered with Pacer ETFs on products including the Pacer S&P 500 3AI Top 100 ETF and the Pacer S&P World 3AI Top 300 ETF. These strategies incorporate 3AI’s Alpha Intelligence Scores and forward-looking forecast models within transparent, rules-based index frameworks designed to enhance stock selection across global equity markets.
“We also work with banks and structured product providers across a range of investment applications,” Salamony says. “For example, we have partnered with Barclays on AI-enhanced index solutions used within investment and insurance-linked products, including volatility-controlled strategies designed for the annuity market,” he says. “These products combine our underlying alpha intelligence-driven indices with additional volatility-management overlays tailored to specific investor requirements.”
Beyond ETFs and indices, 3AI’s technology is also being used within active management workflows spanning research, stock selection and portfolio construction. “Some clients use our intelligence as an additional research and scoring layer, while others deploy it more directly within portfolio construction and investment decision-making,” notes Salamony.
Asia and future of AI-enhanced investing
Thanks to Asia’s still-evolving ETF ecosystem and broad equity universe, Salamony sees significant long-term growth potential across the region for intelligence-driven investment strategies and index solutions.
More than 50% of 3AI’s global equity coverage is across Asia Pacific markets. According to Salamony, many markets across the region remain comparatively less efficiently researched than the US, creating favourable conditions for adaptive, forward-looking investment intelligence systems.
Internally, 3AI monitors a range of AI-enhanced strategies that dynamically tilt benchmark exposures using its forward-looking stock ratings. Since deploying its live forecasting systems in February 2020, the firm says its Asia Pacific strategies have demonstrated strong risk-adjusted characteristics relative to many traditional factor approaches.
“Asia Pacific isn’t just a growth market for ETFs — it has the potential to become one of the leading centres of ETF innovation globally,” Salamony concludes. “The adoption of AI within the investment intelligence layer is going to be an important part of that evolution.”
