Banks and lenders have spent years promising that artificial intelligence will cut costs and speed up decisions. This autumn, the people who supervise them started asking a harder question: what happens when the software starts acting on its own?
Reuters reported in an exclusive that the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the FDIC are asking banks how they limit, monitor and approve AI actions, whether agent decisions can be audited, and how an autonomous system gets shut down. None of the agencies has prescribed specific steps yet.
Regulators Ask Banks Where the Off Switch Is
The concern reaches well beyond Washington. The European Central Bank gave lenders an end-October deadline to produce plans against AI-enabled cyberattacks, and the Bank of England is pressing banks on their recovery plans.
Michael Woodbridge, a cybersecurity partner at Grant Thornton in London, said, “The adoption of AI is often outpacing the ability to put the controls in place.” Sukand Ramachandran, a managing director and senior partner at BCG, warned that a serious attack could lock customers out of their accounts and disrupt payments across the wider economy. More on the lenders under that scrutiny is in our ranking of the best bank stocks according to billionaires.
Privately held AI developers sit at the center of the debate. European banks and regulators have grown frustrated by limited access to Anthropic’s Mythos tool this year, amid concerns that US banks may get first access. Rogue AI agents developed by OpenAI were also reportedly involved in a breach of Hugging Face, another private company.
A Market Selloff Tests the AI Trade
Investors are also testing how much they believe in AI spending. Democrats won the House and Senate in last Tuesday’s midterm elections, and Bloomberg reported that many of the winners ran on anti-AI platforms.
Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel, said investors are “questioning the growth assumptions for data center suppliers and pulling back pretty broadly.” Readers weighing where analysts still see room to run can look at our list of oversold AI stocks where Wall Street analysts are spotting 50%+ upside.
Barry Knapp, managing partner at Ironsides Macroeconomics, said he is not a buyer of anything right now. In his view, investors had acted as if data centers were a new state of affairs that could be projected years into the future.
Photo by Mizuno K on pexels
Our Methodology
To compile this list, we searched for AI-powered financial stocks and AI fintech stocks, and reviewed rankings published by financial websites over the past 12 months. From the stocks that came up, we picked the 10 with the highest average upside potential, based on analysts’ average price target, as of November 9, 2026. We also list each stock’s number of hedge fund holders as of Q2 2026, from our database of 1,006 hedge funds.
At Insider Monkey, we are obsessed with what hedge funds do. The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Insider Monkey’s quarterly newsletter strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 612% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 375 percentage points (see more details here).
10 Best AI-Powered Financial Stocks to Buy According to Analysts
10. S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI)
Market Cap: $135.74 billion
Average Upside Potential: 12%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 124
S&P Global sells the data that AI models and agents are being built on. Its Kensho unit packages that data into AI-ready feeds, and the company has combined its Model Context Protocol tools and adaptive retrieval agents into a single AI data portal. Customers who buy AI products are worth more: contract value in Market Intelligence is growing 1.8 times faster for AI customers than for others, and API call volume is up nearly 50% since the second quarter. Inside the company, AI is used across data operations, research, software development and analyst work.
The stock reflects a business with momentum. Third-quarter revenue grew 7%, and management raised its full-year profit outlook in the same release that opened a strategic review of its Capital IQ and associated data businesses. The company also expects to repurchase more than $7 billion of stock this year.
Chief Executive Martina Cheung said the businesses in the review are “strong and have significant opportunities ahead of them as technology changes how customers access, analyze, and use information.” Whether artificial intelligence can make that data worth more is the question behind our analysis of S&P Global’s data business.
9. Block (NYSE:XYZ)
Market Cap: $53.31 billion
Average Upside Potential: 15%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 76
AI runs through how Block builds and sells. An internal coding agent called goose began by automating engineering tasks and is now embedded in the foundation of the business. Squaremates, the rebranded AI assistant for Square sellers that used to be called Managerbot, is the template for Moneybot, which is planned to predict and present the right interface to each Cash App customer.
Cash App’s lending business is lifting profit faster than revenue. Gross profit rose 22% to $3.24 billion in the third quarter, and consumer lending originations grew 40% to $19.0 billion. Adjusted operating income grew 92% to $923 million, a 29% margin. Management raised its full-year outlook to match, now expecting adjusted diluted earnings per share of $4.15, up 75%.
Analysts stayed constructive after the report. On November 5, Barclays kept an Overweight rating and raised its price target to $105 from $100, calling it another quarter of beating estimates and raising guidance, while Scotiabank analyst Lance Jessurun kept a Sector Perform rating and raised his target to $89 from $82. Whether costs can keep pace with that growth is the question in our analysis of Block’s lending-led gross profit growth.
8. Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU)
Market Cap: $90.19 billion
Average Upside Potential: 17%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 98
Done-for-you accounting is what Intuit now sells through AI. Its Intuit Intelligence layer is meant to keep books current, flag anomalies and forecast cash flow, and AI agents inside TurboTax and the Intuit Enterprise Suite do the work directly, with over 75% of Enterprise Suite customers using them every month. An AI-native Accountant Suite for accounting firms launched in August. Credit Karma’s AI-powered platform handles about one in nine US credit card and personal loan originations. Chief Executive Sasan Goodarzi put it this way: “Our strategy is to win as an AI-driven expert platform.”
The results show a large business still growing. Fiscal 2026 revenue topped $20 billion, reaching $21.4 billion, up 14%, and fourth-quarter revenue was $4.4 billion, also up 14%, with QuickBooks Online Accounting up 20%. The pace is set to slow, though. Fiscal 2027 guidance calls for revenue growth of 9% to 10%, so investors are asking how much of the AI push shows up in faster growth. Credit Karma’s reliance on lending is the subject of our look at whether it can grow beyond the lending cycle.
7. Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST)
Market Cap: $2.20 billion
Average Upside Potential: 36%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 36
Upstart’s business is an AI model. The company runs what it calls the leading AI lending marketplace, and lenders using its models originated a record 574,089 loans in the third quarter, up 34% from a year earlier, with 90% of them fully automated.
Dollar volume grew faster than the loan count. Originations rose 44% to $4.12 billion, and net income came in at $36.578 million, up 15%. Total revenue climbed 34% to $370.522 million, and management is guiding to about $1.35 billion for 2026 and roughly $260 million of adjusted EBITDA, a 19% margin.
Analysts trimmed their targets after the report. On November 4, Citigroup kept a Buy rating and cut its price target to $46 from $61, while Morgan Stanley kept an Equal Weight rating and cut its target to $24 from $35. B. Riley kept a Buy rating and cut its target to $42 from $54, and Truist kept a Buy rating and cut its target to $30 from $40. Co-founder and Chief Executive Paul Gu argued that the model holds up through rough patches in the economy. “Macro comes and goes, but alpha compounds,” he said.
6. Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN)
Market Cap: $36.84 billion
Average Upside Potential: 39%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 62
Coinbase is betting that AI agents become a new class of customer. Its Coinbase for Agents platform supports automated financial management, payments and trading, and weekly agent-based trading volume is growing at about 20%. Chief Executive Brian Armstrong frames it as part of an everything exchange that combines crypto, equities and AI-enabled commerce, and argues that an agentic economy could enlarge the company’s addressable market if security and integration hold up.
The third quarter showed a company that no longer lives and dies by trading fees. Total revenue was $1.22 billion, split almost evenly between transaction revenue of $590.224 million and subscription and services revenue of $570.238 million. Stablecoin revenue was $306.905 million, which leaves room to keep funding new lines such as derivatives and prediction markets. Its Deribit unit already gives it a foothold in the first of those.
Institutional clients, who trade larger sizes and stay through market swings, are a large part of how it hopes to widen its base. How far Coinbase is leaning on professional clients is the subject of our analysis of its institutional shift.
5. Lemonade (NYSE:LMND)
Market Cap: $3.10 billion
Average Upside Potential: 40%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 29
AI is the reason Lemonade can grow with fewer people. It says it now has more than 2.5 times the premium base it had four years ago, and it plans native support for personal AI agents and live demos of its Lemonade OS at an upcoming investor day. Car insurance premium grew 63%, and the company now sells Car in 14 states, with an autonomous version for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving available in six of them.
The numbers show the model working. Third-quarter revenue jumped 73% to $336 million, and gross profit hit a record $118 million. In-force premium reached $1.55 billion, up 34%, the 12th straight quarter of faster growth. The insurer expects positive adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter and for all of 2027.
Analysts are less sure about the spending. On November 9, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods kept a Market Perform rating and lowered its price target to $45 from $48, saying higher growth spending and operating costs outweigh improving revenue growth and loss trends. The firm also noted that premium growth above 30% stands out among property and casualty insurers.
4. Affirm (NASDAQ:AFRM)
Market Cap: $23.15 billion
Average Upside Potential: 42%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 57
A transformer-based model, the same kind of technology behind modern chatbots, now sits inside Affirm’s underwriting. Chief Executive Max Levchin said on the latest call that “the first version of the transformer-based model delivered an incremental 3.4% of end-to-end conversion,” meaning more shoppers completed purchases, and that credit losses stayed flat.
The buy now, pay later lender keeps growing quickly. In its fiscal first quarter, gross merchandise volume rose 34% to $14.4 billion, the twelfth straight quarter above 30% growth, and revenue climbed 35% to $1.26 billion. Management guided to fiscal second-quarter revenue of $1.44 billion to $1.47 billion.
Earnings per share of $0.47 fell short of expectations, and loans more than 30 days past due rose 35 basis points to 2.9%. On November 9, Bernstein reiterated an Outperform rating with a $110 price target, saying the quarter beat expectations and that a stock down about 20% over three months offered a chance to buy. On October 26, Morgan Stanley kept an Equal Weight rating and lowered its target to $79 from $82. Whether the lender’s profitability turn has earned it a place in a major index is the focus of our analysis of Affirm’s index case.
3. Circle (NYSE:CRCL)
Market Cap: $17.79 billion
Average Upside Potential: 54%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 44
AI agents that need to pay for things can now hold wallets built by Circle. In May the company launched Circle Agent Stack, which includes Agent Wallets for agents to hold and send funds, an Agent Marketplace where agents find and pay for services, and Nanopayments for gas-free USDC transfers as small as a millionth of a dollar. Chief Executive Jeremy Allaire called it “the first full suite of services we’re launching where AI agents themselves are the customers.”
The core business is the stablecoin itself. USDC in circulation ended the third quarter at $73.9 billion, flat from a year earlier, while revenue and reserve income came to $865 million and net income from continuing operations to $226 million.
Keefe, Bruyette & Woods kept a Market Perform rating and cut its target to $90 from $105. Needham analyst John Todaro cut his price target to $103 from $134 on November 5 and kept a Buy rating, pointing to slower growth in USDC supply while still expecting the Arc network to begin diversifying Circle’s revenue from 2028. Leadership changes at the company are covered in our report on Circle losing its CFO and a co-founder on the same day.
2. Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD)
Market Cap: $76.15 billion
Average Upside Potential: 54%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 87
Robinhood is putting AI agents inside the brokerage itself. About 200 thousand customers have opened Agentic Trading Accounts, which let AI agents trade on their behalf and have generated more than $1.6 billion in notional volume. The accounts are part of a new set of agent tools that also includes Robinhood Agents and Agent Apps.
Prediction markets went from side project to real revenue in a single year. The brokerage booked $173 million from event contracts in the third quarter, up more than six times from a year earlier, as customers traded a record 16.4 billion contracts.
The core business gives that bet a base. Gold subscribers reached a record 5.2 million, up 34%, and total platform assets rose 19% to $396 billion.On October 28, Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani kept an Outperform rating and a $160 price target, expecting prediction markets and new products to drive the next leg of growth, while Wells Fargo kept an Equal Weight rating and cut its target to $100 from $120, pointing to lower take rates. How far it has spread beyond trading is the subject of our piece on its 13 businesses that each bring in $100 million.
1. Pagaya (NASDAQ:PGY)
Market Cap: $1.55 billion
Average Upside Potential: 61%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 38
Banks and lenders that want AI-driven lending without building it themselves can plug into Pagaya. The company describes itself as a technology firm delivering AI-driven products for the financial ecosystem, using machine learning and a network of data to offer consumer credit through its lending partners. In the third quarter it signed up Citizens Financial Group and First National Bank of Omaha for personal loans and point-of-sale financing, which brings its total to seven new partners over the past 12 months.
Those partners are feeding the network. Network volume rose 29% to $3.6 billion, and GAAP net income reached $50 million, up $27 million from a year earlier. Revenue and other income grew 12% to $390 million. Management raised its full-year net income guidance, and its outlook now calls for $162 million to $182 million of GAAP net income.
On October 30, B. Riley Securities reiterated a Buy rating and raised its price target to $38 from $36. Whether the AI approach is paying off is the question in our look at whether AI lending is finally working at Pagaya.
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