The financial services and wealth management group said it had switched on a new investment process for its Sanlam Managed Risk UCITS Fund, previously run with a systematic investing process – known as a ‘black box’.
The fund is now investing based on a 100% artificial intelligence driven process investing in passive equities for growth, with a protection strategy negatively correlated to equities.
The strategy targets 10% volatility.
Sanlam said machine learning had “multiple years of operational experience” and a “real, impressive” track record.
It said that because machines think in a different way to human participants on markets that the fund had the potential to act as a diversifier for clients’ investments.
The product is managed out of the group’s Sanlam Global Investment Solutions (SGIS) division.
Cobus Kruger, CEO of SGIS, said:
The purpose of [artificial intelligence] is to help humans more efficiently process and interpret the vast amounts of data.
“Machine learning autonomously learns and adapts to new data without being programmed and at speeds that are far beyond human capacity.
“These two factors together should provide good value and help deliver better, more consistent outcomes for investors.”
