Mauro Cesa

The global quant head at a leading US bank is working on the type of model calibration problem he would ordinarily disregard. “It would require too much experimentation, too much hard work,” he tells WatersTechnology’s sibling publication, Risk.net. “There would be too many open ends. It would be too time consuming.” Except now he is tackling the task by doing “as little of the work as humanly possible.” He has written zero lines of code. AI is doing the work instead. “It’s going pretty well at

By This is the second of two features about the use of AI tools by quants in their daily work. The first looked at how banks and buy-side firms are using AI and the lessons they have drawn from experience so far. Because of the sensitivity of the topic, Risk.net has not named interviewees. The release of newly powerful agentic AI systems since the start of the year has prompted a rethink among

By This is the first of two articles based on interviews with senior quants about the use of agentic AI tools in their daily work. A second feature will look at the threat to quant roles, and how the new tools may influence hiring. Because of the sensitivity of the topic, sources have been anonymised. The global quant head at a leading US bank is working on the type of model calibration problem he