Former Goldman Sachs and Capital Group executives have launched an AI-driven investment firm that will use autonomous agents to research, select and trade equities, with plans to expand into multistrategy investing, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Alex Popa, a former portfolio manager at Capital Group, and Charles Elkan, previously head of machine learning at Goldman Sachs, are raising capital for Poesis, a Menlo Park-based investment firm. Its inaugural strategy, AI Clarity, has been managing the founders' own capital since August and is scheduled to open to external investors in early 2027.

The strategy invests in a portfolio of 80 to 100 US-listed large-cap stocks, targeting an average holding period of three years. AI agents use quantitative models to conduct research, identify investment opportunities and determine trading decisions, while human portfolio managers establish risk parameters and approve transactions. The system can also hedge market exposure by shorting equity indices when it identifies potential downturns.

AI Clarity declined 0.3% in October, compared with a fall of almost 1% for the S&P 500, according to people familiar with its performance. The strategy aims to outperform broader equity markets while limiting exposure to major drawdowns, and will charge a 1% management fee and 20% performance fee.

Poesis currently employs 10 people, including engineers and data scientists, but its founders envisage expanding into additional strategies and eventually establishing a multistrategy hedge fund for institutional investors. The firm's AI-led operating model could allow it to manage billions of dollars with fewer than 100 employees, significantly below the staffing levels of established multistrategy managers such as Citadel and Millennium Management.

The launch reflects growing interest in deploying AI beyond investment research and decision support towards more autonomous portfolio management. Poesis has already tested fully autonomous AI trading agents across concentrated long-term equity and market-neutral quantitative strategies, with both systems operating within their prescribed investment mandates.