SoFi buys AI startup Composer to automate retail investing

SoFi is pushing retail investing closer to hedge-fund-style automation, buying Composer Securities LLC to let customers build, test and run trading strategies in everyday language. The bet is that AI can do for investing what mobile did for banking, but the bigger question is whether broader access will outpace investor understanding.

Composer by SoFi is built around three paths: custom strategy design, community-built strategies and diversified portfolios. SoFi said users can search more than 2,000 community-created strategies, test them against historical data and then execute them automatically under rules the investor selects. That folds strategy design, back-testing and trade execution into one consumer product, lowering the technical barrier at the same time it lowers the barrier to taking on sophisticated risk.

The timing matters because commission-free trading is already standard across major brokerages, forcing platforms to look for a sharper edge. SoFi chief executive Anthony Noto has argued that if someone can explain an investment idea in plain English, AI tools can help turn it into a working strategy. That pitch is powerful for first-time investors who never had access to quantitative tools, but it also opens the door to users running complex systems they may not fully understand, especially when algorithms are presented as simple prompts and one-click automation.

SoFi is not making the move from weakness. In its first-quarter 2026 results, the company said members rose 35% to a record 14.7 million, adjusted net revenue climbed 41% to a record $1.1 billion, net income reached $167 million and adjusted EBITDA came in at $340 million. It also posted $12.2 billion in total loan originations and 22.2 million products, giving it the scale to keep investing in new features.

The Composer purchase fits into a wider AI push across SoFi’s platform. On June 2, 2026, it launched SoFi Coach, an AI-powered chat available first to SoFi Plus members, built with SoFi’s financial planners to help people track, budget, save and invest. SoFi said nearly 70% of engaged test members used the tool to take meaningful steps to improve their finances, and it said the feature had already helped members take tens of thousands of financial actions.

The competitive pressure is rising fast. Robinhood recently said users would be able to create dedicated trading accounts for AI agents, connect them to a wallet and get notifications and, for some trades, preview or approval prompts before execution. That places SoFi and its rivals in a race to turn AI from a front-end assistant into an active investing layer. The market opportunity is large, but so is the danger that simpler interfaces will hide more complicated risk.